- Madis Kõiv
Madis Kõiv (born December 1929) is an Estonian
writer and physicist.Education
Kõiv attended school in
Tartu after the second World War, graduating in the early 1950s with a degree innuclear physics . Kõiv worked as ascientist and lecturer until 1991.Career as a playwright
Kõiv always entertained a fascination with and love for literature. He wrote mostly for personal entertainment until the 1950s, when he became active in
Estonia n literary circles. His earliest published works were written with friends from these circles. He also wrote under apseudonym for several years.His first published work was a play called "Küüni täitmine" ("Filling the Hay Barn") written as a collaboration between Kõiv (using his
pseudonym , Jaanus Andreus Nooremb) andHando Runnel in 1978. In 1999, the play was successfully produced for the first time.Kõiv then wrote two pieces with
Vaino Vahing . The first was a play titled "Faehlmann. Keskpäev. Õhtuselgus." ("Faehlmann. Noon. Evening Clarity.") The two also wrote the dialogue novel "Endspiel. Laskumine orgu." ("Endspiel. Descent into the Valley.")Just before the end of the decade, Kõiv began to publish works he had previously written for his own amusement under his own name. Kõiv became the most essential
Estonia nplaywright of the 1950s and 1960s.In the early 1990s, Kõiv began to gain fame. In 1991 and 1993, he won the Tuglas short story award for "Film" and "The Life of an Eternal Physicus", respectively. He won the annual
Estonia n literary award in 1991 for "The Meeting". He won the annual Estonian literary award again in 1995 for "The Philosopher's Day" and "Return to Father". Kõiv won the award a third time in 1999 for Scenes From the Hundred Years' War.Kõiv has released only 22 of the plays he has written and has said that these comprise half of the dramatic literature he has created.
Career as a
novelist Kõiv is also the author of several novels. "Widow" and "Aporia of Attica, Tragedy of Elea" are two of his best known.
Memoirs
Kõiv's
memoir s (the series "Studia memoriae") consist largely of introspection, in sharp contrast to a typicalbiography .ources
* [http://www.einst.ee/literary/autumn2004/19_02.htm Estonian Literary Magazine]
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