Come join me on my creative journey!

Imbi Paju is a multifaceted creator, writer, documentary filmmaker and essayist. Her books have been published in many languages.

She broke onto the international scene in 2005 with the premier of her documentary film Memories Denied. One year later saw the publication of the identically-titled book, an essayistic literary documentary work. Both the movie and the book took flight across the world, enlightening all about the realities in occupied Estonia and the crimes committed by one people against another, realities that had been shrouded by Soviet propaganda. Paju’s path within the cultural world began during the Soviet occupation in the university town of Tartu, where she studied classical singing. She sang in the Vanemuise Theater Opera Choir and later in the Estonian Radio Mixed Chorus. When Estonia embarked upon restoring its independence and revitalizing freedom of speech, she began studying at the Estonian School of Humanities, the first independent private university. She later continued her education at the University of Helsinki, where she studied the Finnish language, Social Studies and Gender Studies, which led her to probe more deeply into psychoanalysis, literature, art history and history, finding new perspectives and kindred spirits to help her render meaning to life. Now she was embarking on a voyage of self-discovery.

Gender Studies were particularly crucial for her, since this helped her, as someone emerging from a totalitarian system, look into herself and her gender with new vision and perspective, something that had not been possible in Soviet-occupied Estonia. She also furthered her studies at the Swedish-language Svenska Österbottens Folkakademi, where she studied Art, Filmmaking and the Swedish language.

As a columnist, she contributed to Estonian and Finnish newspapers as well as providing news from the Baltic States to the Finnish television station TV4.

It was precisely during her movements between these two countries that her first documentary film as well as her books came into being, first being published as Finnish-language translations of her Estonian manuscripts. It was during collaboration with a Finnish publisher that she acquired her first valuable experience regarding a writer’s path to the reader. Imbi Paju is a seeker of truth – she believes that freedom should be unceasingly reflected upon, recreated and nurtured through dialog and stories.

In 2020, her book Memories Denied, which has been published in 9 languages, was designated a contemporary literary classic by the Like publishing house and bookstores in Finland because the book “provides lessons of discovery of humanity, the fate of a single small person amid the twists and turns of history, as well as serving as an important resurrection of the past and a mirror of the present.”

In the author’s own voice:

Instead of sharing a traditional curriculum vitae with those who have found their way to my homepage and my creative works, I choose to share a more personal and candid story of myself.

It is my belief that sharing forges the bonds and develops the trust that unifies us as human beings, particularly in the current geopolitical times that are so rife with uncertainty. Each shared story contains a fragment of history and spirit from which we draw the strength and knowledge to live and discover the path that will carry us onward. Every person’s life is worthy of its own novel.

Twenty years have passed since the publication of “Memories Denied” (reprint: Gallus 2019). All my other works are listed here on my homepage. They are all part of my path; they are my lessons and my companions. In 2023, I completed a collection of essays entitled “Literary Clinic: What It Means to Be Human” (Gallus 2023). I worked on it during and after COVID, finally recognizing that my work was ripe for sharing with my readers.

After that, amid clouds of worry arising from the climate crisis, I completed my first book meant for children and families: “The Gardener of Kadriorg” (Postimees Publishing 2024), illustrated by Liina Maadla. I enjoyed my cooperation with the artist, the designer, the editors, and the publisher. Our cultural space, our Estonian traditions and patterns of life, are vessels that lovingly hold the green wisdom passed down by our ancestors.

The book’s young language editor exclaimed: “Everything in the book is present here and now in our own nature, our own gardens, in real places in Estonia.” Her enthusiastic words of recognition are now preserved on the back cover of my book.

Nature is deeply ingrained in my existence. I was born in 1959 and grew up in the village of Võtikvere, nestled among woodlands, adorned by old manor trees as well as well-tended forests with an abundant variety of flora. People kept lovely gardens that provided therapy and comfort; because we lived under foreign oppression, talking about their grief and their feelings was difficult and even dangerous. In my home village, woodland renewal and nature conservation have been practiced for 200 years. My father was a forest warden. This way of life, this environment, as well as all the stories I have heard, are reflected in my children’s book. It was like living in a state within a state; the villagers worked for the forestry agency; renewing the forest and preserving nature were central to our daily lives. Reading and cultural pursuits were held in high regard. Some old people wrote poetry; I listened to their stories of our independence-era reading and writing workshops. Through these stories, I wanted to catch a glimpse into the time when Estonia was still independent, the Estonia into which my parents were born. Historians have since revealed that the foreign regime destroyed 30 million books upon their invasion of Estonia – poetry and prose, philosophy, intellectual literature, books on psychology, children’s literature – seeking to eradicate all that is inherent in Western culture. The foreign regime replaced such works with ideology, thus creating the need for two-facedness if one was to survive under such a system. However, the stories told by the older generation proved more powerful than this torrent of destruction. To my surprise, I realized that even some people in the Free World believed in ideologies that the Soviet Union had so masterfully disseminated. This drove me to become a writer while I was in Finland. I agree with author Margaret Atwood: if you are a writer, it is crucial to ask whether something is true and just, and not to choose sides. Now, as if being drawn into the spirit of the current era, I find myself worrying about the conflicting ideologies that are emerging to stifle intellectual and existential discourse.

It is my background of rearranging the world, of learning and discovering new things, that has made me into a writer and gives me the strength to continue writing. When Estonia was on the threshold of regaining its independence, I abandoned my singing and began making documentaries and writing, although these processes were time-consuming. Then, my world opened up and suddenly broadened into Europe, Asia, North America, Israel, Ukraine, and elsewhere. In 2009, the publication of the book “Fear Behind Us All: How Estonia Lost Its History,” written by myself and author Sofi Oksanen in Helsinki, kindled an information war. This war had already started some time earlier, and we recognized that the assertions running rampant throughout Finnish society – Estonia is not a real country, all the stories about independence are myths – arose from ignorance. People were unaware of and unfamiliar with Estonia’s story because Estonia had languished behind the Iron Curtain for half a century. Compiling the book was a pleasure, but its end result was the outbreak of an information war. Even simply talking about these events was difficult for me until spring of 2024, when Sofi Oksanen’s new book “Same River, Twice: Putin’s War on Women” hit the shelves in Estonian. In her book, the author has recorded all that had happened during this time, expressing amazement at how such a smear campaign was even possible in a democracy. All this time I had been feeling that I had lost myself, not realizing that I had actually opened the door for my own stories. They were stories forbidden under the foreign regime, stories in which human life was vulnerable and endangered, left without solace. I was on the threshold of post-traumatic stress, which I now began to study. I soon recognized that I can not change anyone else; I must instead delve into myself and my own way of thinking. This is true in any situation.

I learned new things, presented my films and books throughout the world, organized creative writing workshops in Estonia and Finland, and later discovered coaching for myself. Leaving stress behind requires working with oneself, one’s thought patterns, feelings and actions. This self-reprogramming is like giving birth – your old world dissolves, with new contractions helping you to emerge into new circumstances, into a new, more fully developed and warmer world. Today, this is the experience from which I am drawing wisdom for the historical novel I am in the process of writing. The more I write, the better my vision and cognition become. I enjoy the process of learning, both as a person as well as a writer. This process always includes the joy of discovery, even through aggravation. I do not know of a single life story that is free of conflicts and challenges, free of the pain of loss. All this is part of becoming human, a part of life’s journey. Every discovery along this path is a rebirth.

In 2024, I accepted the challenge to write three essays about the Gulag Archipelago together with the former prime minister, good kindred spirit and writer Mart Laar, and another good friend, historian and politician Eerik-Niiles Kross.  The book, entitled “No Man Is An Island: Three Essays on the Gulag Archipelago,” borrows its title from the conception of English classicist John Donne, one that resonates with the universally human message of “Gulag Archipelago” by Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Every human being is valuable; the brutal death of any person, the destruction of their creative works, represents a loss to all humankind.

Five decades have passed since the publication“Gulag Archipelago” in Europe. However, very few know that Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn, under persecution by the hostile KGB, completed this classic work in occupied Estonia. It was with the help of his Estonian friend Arnold Susi and other intellectuals that the writer found a hideout where he could safely write.

In current times, the suffering of Ukraine reminds us of this every day.

As a writer, I am fascinated by the guiding archetypes and beliefs that are programmed into our civilization. Therefore as I write, I ask myself: can I transform my insight into an artistic work, a novel, an essay, a short story. We can shield ourselves from hardships if we dare to discuss, dare to share. Here I want to share the final statement of Nobel Prize winner Imre Kertész at the Nobel banquet in Stockholm in 2002, where he finished his speech by exclaiming: “Die Liebe!” (“Love!”). Indeed, love lays the foundation for all actions and is the guardian of all life. The author, who had spent time in a Nazi concentration camp, manifests this truth, a truth that has also been affirmed by my grandmother and my relatives who survived Siberia or the Gulag. This is not something esoteric; it is the cornerstone for everything. I am grateful that Mikael Enckel, the Finnish-Swedish psychoanalyst and writer, analyzed our works simultaneously; I feel as if it gives me the permission to repeat the final, most important word of the Nobel Prize winner’s speech – “love” – because love is what transforms our life into an artistic work, despite everything.

For me, the journey I am sharing here is like the beautiful sandy path of my childhood, a path that remained unchanged through the seasons, carried me to my destination, lined with trees and flowers.

Stories emerge before us like memorial stones that invite us to notice them. They materialize in our lives at new points in our life experience and guide us toward a more well-balanced life. We are fortunate indeed if we achieve balance. At this time, my greatest privilege is the freedom to write. I consider myself a post-colonial writer, because I was born in 1959 in Soviet-occupied Estonia, which now belongs to the community of Scandinavia and the Baltic States. I like the notion that Europe ends here, because the oldest monument in the world dedicated to Europe’s great poet Friedrich Schiller stands on the Puhtu Peninsula in western Estonia. And yet, here in Estonia, we are all neighbors of Russia, as if standing guard at the border of freedom and democracy. We represent speakers of but a small language, and it is a great privilege and good fortune to be recognized as a piece of the puzzle that is the great world of literature. Estonia is a borderland of Europe as well as its heartbeat.

Welcome to my world, the world of a writer, where sharing and understanding give birth to stories that in turn give birth to new stories.