A. H. Tammsaare

Anton Hansen (January 18, (O.S.) / January 30, 1878 – March 1, 1940), better known by his pseudonym A. H. Tammsaare and its variants, was an Estonian writer whose pentalogy Truth and Justice (Tõde ja õigus; 1926–1933) is considered one of the major works of Estonian literature and "The Estonian Novel".

Tammsaare was born in Järvamaa, in the municipality of Albu, village of Vetepere, Estonia. The son of a farmer, he came from a poor background but managed to collect enough money for his education. His family was quite enlightened for the time, with his father ordering newspapers, which was something most Estonian farmers didn't do. He studied in Väike-Maarja and Tartu at the Hugo Treffner Gymnasium, and afterward at the University of Tartu where he studied law. Tammsaare's studies were interrupted by tuberculosis in 1911. He spent over a year in a sanatorium in Sochi – where his memorial house is open to the public – and the following six years in his brother's farm in Koitjärve, Estonia (now part of Põhja-Kõrvemaa Nature Reserve), reading works of Cervantes, Shakespeare and Homer. His younger sister, Maria Hansen, was the mother of Tammsaare's nephew, actor Arno Suurorg.

In 1918, when Estonia became independent, Tammsaare moved to Tallinn. It was here that Tammsaare wrote prose works based on the history and lives of the Estonian people that gained him a prominent place in Estonian literature.