This year, Prima Vista focuses on the connections between books and places.

The 2025 Tartu International Literary Festival Prima Vista will take place from May 5th to May 10th. The festival’s theme is “Book as a Place, Place as a Book.” This year’s partner city is Valga, and the festival’s patron is writer Kai Aareleid.

The motto of the Estonian Book Year is “A People Begins with a Book.” Inspired by this, Prima Vista will focus on the literary mapping and interpretation of Tartu, Estonia, and various places worldwide. Through literature, places become more visible and perceptible, gaining meaning and value. Translations help written places find their place on the world map of different cultures.

New, imagined places are also born in literature: places of memory, refuge, and fantasy. The world expands through poetry and imagination, utopias and dystopias — both in the content of books and in their form and structure. Every book is itself a place or a gateway to a new place, and upon returning, you become more aware of your place in this world.

In one way or another, most of the festival’s events focus on places within books and on books themselves as places.

“Just as there can be no arch without stones, there can be no bridges to literary places without each individual place-book—those very structures that allow us to reach places that exist only as long as they are written. Whether it’s Kjell Westö’s Helsinki, Leonardo Padura’s Havana, Markus Thielemann’s Lüneburg, or your and my Tartu or Tallinn—these are just a few examples—all of them are different layers of an endless map of infinite worlds. Place-books and book-places are, as far as I know, the most modern and the most timeless mapping tool,” said the festival’s patron, Kai Aareleid.

International guests at Prima Vista will include, among others, German writers Klaus Modick and Markus Thielemann, Cuban writer Leonardo Padura, Finnish-Swedish writer Kjell Westö, and Latvian writer, playwright, and dramaturg Andris Kalnozols.

Several authors who have previously been in residence in Tartu will also return, offering literary walks to share their personal connection with the city.

As both Estonians and Latvians celebrate the 500th anniversary of their first books in their native languages, this milestone will also be reflected in the festival’s closing event—a poetry evening uniting two cultures at the Tartu Literature House cultural club Salong.

The event will feature poets Ligija Purinaša, Anita Mileika, and Raibīs from Latvia, alongside Kauksi Ülle, Maryliis Teinfeldt-Grins, and Andreas Kalkun from Estonia, representing the Latgalian, Võro, Seto, and Kadrina dialects.

As a pre-event, March will see the annual literary periodical debut competition “First Step”, organized in collaboration with Prima Vista and the Tartu Cultural Endowment. On April 23, all literature enthusiasts are invited to Book and Rose Day at Tartu Kaubamaja.

On April 29, it will be Prima Vista’s partner city Valga Day. The program includes a meeting with the festival patron, a conversation between Latvian writer Andris Kalnozols and Contra, the presentation of the August Gailit Short Story Award, and much more. Throughout the day, there will be a book fair in the foyer of the Valga Cultural Center.

More info:
Marja Unt
Program Manager, Prima Vista
(+372) 56906836
marja.unt@gmail.com