Photos: HeadRead 2026 festival fills Tallinn with literature
Last week, Tallinn hosted the HeadRead literary festival, featuring author talks, literary walking tours of the capital, plus special music events.
The festival ran Wednesday, May 27 to Sunday, May 31, with other attractions including author talks and meet-and-greets.
The main venue used was the Writers' House (Kirjanike Maja) in the Old Town, and other locations included the nearby St. Nicholas' Church (Niguliste kirik).
International guest authors included French economist Thomas Piketty ("Capital in the Twenty-First Century" (2013), "Capital and Ideology" (2019)) and Belgian novelist Gaea Schoeters ("Trofee" (2020)), while local writers taking part included Anu Allas, Brigitta Davidjants, and Triin Soomets.
The Estonian Children's Literature Center on Pikk tänav in the Old Town also hosted authors, and the Ukrainian Cultural Center presented contemporary Ukrainian poetry.
HeadRead is a play on words: In addition to interpreting it at face value in English, in Estonian, "Head read" would translate as "Good lines."
It is an international literary festival held in Tallinn every spring and is one of the most prominent cultural events in Estonia. Past participants include British historians Simon Sebag-Montefiore and Lucy Worsley, and Finnish playwright and author Sofi Oksanen.
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Editor: Andrew Whyte, Kaspar Viilup
