Imagine you are a paleontologist. Write a diary entry describing a day in your life
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In the 1998s, I am a girl from the Soviet Estonian provinces who has begun to develop an interest in paleontology. Studying prehistoric creatures somehow fills the black holes where my roots might otherwise be if my family hadn’t been forced to move away for fear of the Soviet authorities… Rooting around in the carrot bed I find the jawbone of a wooly rhino and in the churchyard traces of the mammoths and aurochs that once grazed there.
I have to hide my Soviet Child of October badge from my grandfather, but at school I can’t breathe a word of what is said and read at home. Between school and home I am like a duckling trying, with the ice closing in, to keep a ring of water around me from freezing over. But times suddenly change with such great momentum that if I weren’t in the habit of keeping a diary it could seem that several lifetimes have gone by. All of a sudden I find that I come from a completely different small Estonian town. As the mother of a stepfamily I look into the lake and in the reflection see a totally different time and self.“
Kristiina Ehin has published six books of poetry and four of prose in her native Estonian, as well as seven poetry and three prose books in English. Her work has received a number of prestigious prizes at home and abroad. Paleontologist’s Diary tells of the author’s childhood and youth as the child of well-known writers. The book consists of her own personal memories as well as oral family history reaching back to the time before her birth. Prehistory, the recent past and the present are all woven into a textured, variegated fabric, adding another perceptive, sensory story to the Tales from Behind the Iron Curtain series.
I have to hide my Soviet Child of October badge from my grandfather, but at school I can’t breathe a word of what is said and read at home. Between school and home I am like a duckling trying, with the ice closing in, to keep a ring of water around me from freezing over. But times suddenly change with such great momentum that if I weren’t in the habit of keeping a diary it could seem that several lifetimes have gone by. All of a sudden I find that I come from a completely different small Estonian town. As the mother of a stepfamily I look into the lake and in the reflection see a totally different time and self.“
Kristiina Ehin has published six books of poetry and four of prose in her native Estonian, as well as seven poetry and three prose books in English. Her work has received a number of prestigious prizes at home and abroad. Paleontologist’s Diary tells of the author’s childhood and youth as the child of well-known writers. The book consists of her own personal memories as well as oral family history reaching back to the time before her birth. Prehistory, the recent past and the present are all woven into a textured, variegated fabric, adding another perceptive, sensory story to the Tales from Behind the Iron Curtain series.
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