The Man Who Spoke Snakish
by Andrus Kivirähk
The last Estonian who talks to snakes watches his world end.
For you if
you want to understand cultural erasure through the funniest and strangest novel written about it
⚡ Choose Your Route ⚡
Not sold directly on this site. Support indie bookstores with a new copy, or go sustainable with a used one.
Buy New on Bookshop.orgSupports independent bookstores
— OR —
Find Used on Better World BooksSecondhand & sustainable
$19 MSRP
Reference price shown. Other editions may be available.
Leemet is the last person in medieval Estonia who speaks Snakish — the ancient language that gives humans power over animals and the forest. Around him, his people are abandoning the old ways for Christianity and village life and the promise of civilization. He refuses. Kivirähk uses this impossible fable to dispatch from inside Estonia's deepest cultural anxiety — the small nation that has spent a thousand years being told its language and traditions are primitive, irrelevant, worth abandoning. Funny, sad, completely original. Estonia's most beloved contemporary novel and its most Estonian one.
Where This Book Lives
- Setting
- Estonia • Eastern Europe
- Voice
- Written by a Estonian author
Same pattern, different era
Different time, different place. The same thing keeps happening.
Shock of the New
Robert Hughes
When art broke the frame.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Things Fall Apart
Chinua Achebe
The African civilization story colonizers didn't write.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Arrow of God
Chinua Achebe
A priest, an officer, and the god between them.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
Leaves of the Banyan Tree
Albert Wendt
Three generations of Samoa. Progress destroys what it promises to build.
✦ READ – REFLECT → RESIST
For the family bookshelf
Same idea, written for a younger reader. Good for reading together.
