August Gailit

Biography

August Gailit (January 9, 1891 – November 5, 1960) was an Estonian writer. Georg August Gailit was born in Kuiksilla (near Sangaste Castle), Sangaste Parish (now Otepää Parish), Kreis Dorpat, Governorate of Livonia, the son of a carpenter and grew up on a farm in Laatre. From 1899 he attended schools in the parish and the town of Valga from 1905, then from 1907 a municipal school in Tartu. From 1911 until 1914 he worked as a journalist in today's Latvia and Estonia in 1916 until 1918. In the Estonian War of Independence he participated as a war correspondent. From 1922 until 1924 August Gailit lived in Germany, France and Italy. After that he worked as a freelance writer in Tartu and from 1934 in Tallinn. From 1932 until 1934 he was the director of the Theater Vanemuine in Tartu. In 1932 August Gailit married to actress Elvi Vaher-Nander (1898–1981) and his daughter Aili-Viktooria was born in 1933. With the Soviet occupation of Estonia, Gailit fled with his family in September 1944 to Sweden, where he worked as a writer. They settled in the Ormesta manor house near Örebro. He died there on 5 November 1960 and was buried at the Örebro northern cemetery.