The Võtikvere Book Village Literary Festival was established in Imbi Paju’s childhood cultural landscape. For 200 years, this has been an area of nature conservation and forestry. In order to not allow this area to be affected by new forestry reforms that favored industry, Imbi and fellow villagers laid the foundations for the first literary festival to be held in a re-independent Estonia.
This was not just a literary event; it was a platform. For Imbi Paju, it was important to connect people, to overcome cultural divides and to create new dialogues, forums, and to deal with life through literature and nature preservation, themes that are important for Estonian culture and the environment. The aim was to revitalize and restore value to forgotten traditions and to bring them into a modern context.