(*1961)
Rein Raud is one of Estonia’s most prominent liberal intellectuals and most acclaimed prose writers. He was born in Tallinn in 1961 into a family of children’s literature authors. Since 1974, he has published numerous collections of poetry, novels and plays. In 1994, he received his Ph.D. in literary theory from the University of Helsinki and served as a professor of cultural studies at Tallinn University. He was also the university’s first rector from 2006 to 2011. As a scholar, he is a widely published expert in cultural theory, literature and philosophy of modern and pre-modern Japan.
In addition to his literary and academic career, Raud contributes extensively to public debate through his journalistic articles and essays, and his anti-nationalist commentary usually provokes a strong social response. Two of his novels — Hector ja Bernard (Hector and Bernard, 2004) and Rekonstruktsioon (Reconstruction, 2012) — have won the Estonian Cultural Foundation Prize for Prose.
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