Kaia M Gallagher (She/her)

An Estonian-American, Kaia Gallagher has recovered her family's World War II history in "Candles for the Defiant," a family memoir. This gripping narrative recounts the little-known history regarding how the Baltic States of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania found themselves caught between the territorial ambitions of Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler.  Kaia has an MFA in Creative Writing from the University of California Riverside, as well as a Ph.D. in Sociology from Brown University. "Candles for the Defiant" is her debut novel.

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Book:

Candles for the Defiant

Discovering My Family's Estonian Past
Memoir / Essays / Creative Nonfiction
Atterberry Press
March 2024
ISBN 9798989203604
286 pages

During her search to learn more about her family’s Estonian past, Kaia uncovers the efforts of a would-be uncle, who resisted the Soviet occupation of Estonia during World War II only to later be condemned as a traitor and a spy when Estonia was occupied by the Germans in 1942. This timely story of Baltic patriotism offers a compelling, less-well-known account of what happened in Estonia during World War II as well as a sobering lesson regarding the volatile political situation in Eastern Europe. More/less