Authors

Estonian · 1855–1927

August Kitzberg

August Kitzberg was the first significant Estonian playwright, whose rural dramas — especially Libahunt (The Werewolf, 1912) — drew on Estonian folk legend and peasant life to create an indigenous theatrical tradition. He worked as a teacher and journalist while writing, and his plays combining realism with folk mythology gave Estonian literature its first theatrical classics. The Werewolf, about a woman rumored to be a shapeshifter who is destroyed by village superstition, remains a centerpiece of Estonian theatrical repertoire.