August Mälk


August Mälk was an Estonian writer and politician.

Life

August Mälk was born on, in Lümanda Parish in the village of Koovi, located on the west coast of the island of Saaremaa, in modern-day Estonia. He attended the University of Tartu from 1923 to 1925 and then returned to Saaremaa to work as a teacher. He began his literary career while headmaster of the elementary school in Lümanda, publishing his first novel, Kesaliblik in 1926.
Mälk married Pauline Triipan in 1933. The couple had one daughter.
In 1935, Mälk achieved great success with his novel Õitsev Meri, depicting life in a fishing village. It was the first volume of a trilogy that also included Taeva Palge All and Hea Sadam. In addition to his 18 novels, he also wrote plays, short stories and two books of memoirs. Several of his novels have been translated into German and Finnish.
Mälk became involved in politics in the 1930s. He was a member of the National Constituent Assembly in 1937. In 1938, he was elected to the Chamber of Deputies, where he served until the Soviet invasion of Estonia in 1940.
In 1944, Mälk fled into exile in Sweden during the second Soviet invasion of Estonia. In Stockholm, he served as the chairman of the Estonian Writers Union Abroad from its founding in 1945 until 1982. He died in Stockholm in 1987.
In 2000, the Estonian Post Office issued a stamp commemorating the centenary of Mälk's birth.

Works

Novels