Estonian poet, essayist, and translator JAAN KAPLINSKI (1941, Tartu) is a university instructor of philosophy, sociology, and history. His mother was Estonian and his father a Pole who vanished during the Second World War in the Gulag. He has a diverse array of interests, ranging from Estonian philology to the study of Celtic and Indian myth and Chinese and Buddhist philosophy. He has published poetry and essays in Estonian, Finnish, and English. His most recent work, If Heidegger had been Mordvinian, has sparked considerable discussion and debate.