Merike Riives

Merike Riives (until 1969, Merike Roop, born 31. X 1945) is a translator and editor.

Riives was born in Tallinn and graduated the 4th Secondary School in Tallinn in 1964. In 1969, she graduated from Tartu State University with a degree in Romanic philology. She has worked at a library and taught French in several schools in Tallinn. In 1984, she became a freelancer. She is a member of the Writers’ Union since 1994.

Riives’ first translations were published in the 1973 anthology Prantsuse novell (‘The French Short Story’). She has mainly translated the works of XX century French writers (Antoine de Saint-Exupéry, Georges Simenon, Michel Tournier, Marguerite Yourcenar and many others) but also of other French classics, for example Voltaire. Riives has written forewords and afterwords for her translated novels and published articles on French literature.

In addition to French, she is also interested in the Provençal language. She has compiled a Provençal language poetry anthology Provence’i bukett (‘The Provençal Bouquet’, 2013) and translated and compiled the selected works Kirjad künkal (‘Letters on a Hill’) of Andriéu Resplandin’s Provençal language poetry (2021).

In 1995, Riives compiled the poetry collection Testament with poems by Enn Uibo.

L. P. (Translated by A. A.)