Gailit was born on January 9, 1891, near Sangaste Manor in south Estonia. In the fall of 1944 during World War Two, he fled to Sweden with his family.

He died on November 5, 1960, and his cremated remains were buried at Örebro Northern Cemetery. The remains of his wife, Elvy Gailit, a former operetta soloist at the Vanemuine Theater in Tartu, were later interred at the same location.

At the request and with the support of Gailit's grandchildren living in Sweden, both August and Elvy Gailit's urns will be reburied at Tallinn's Forest Cemetery in the new section dedicated to Estonian writers later this week.

A memorial stone created by sculptor Heino Raudsepp and artist Eduard Ole will be placed alongside their remains.

A commemorative event titled "Mr. Ge Comes Home" will take place on Thursday, January 9, at 3 p.m. in the Black Hall of the Estonian Writers' Union. August Gailit's relatives from both Estonia and Sweden will also be present at the event.

In 1917 August Gailit, along with a number of other writers and poets, founded a literary group called "Siuru." It was an expressionistic and neo-romantic movement that ran counter to the Young Estonia formalist tradition and the erotic poems of which caused some scandal. Members of the group included: Marie Under, Henrik Visnapuu, Johannes Semper, Peet Aren, Friedebert Tuglas and Artur Adson.

The early prose of Gailit also contained erotic content and satire. Until the middle of the 1920s Gailit was strongly influenced by neo-romanticism. Oswald Spengler and Knut Hamsun also exerted great influence in his work.

His famous novel "Toomas Nipernaadi" (which was made into a movie in 1983) describes the romantic and adventurous life of a vagabond. Some of his novels covered political issues such as the novel "Isade maa" (1935), which addressed the subject of the Estonian 1918-1920 War of Independence. Gailit's novel "Üle rahutu vee" (published in 1951 in Gothenburg, Sweden) concerns the tragic event of having to leave ones homeland.

You can read more about the life and work of August Gailit in this article (In English) from the Estonian Literary Magazine.

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