Some of Me by Isabella Rossellini

Some of Me by Isabella Rossellini

Estonian literature in its written form is little more than a century old. As Estonia was part of the Russian Empire, then of the Soviet Union, it is something of a miracle that the powerful presence of the Baltic Germans, the periods of Russification, and other more subtle forms of cultural pressure, have not eradicated Estonian as a serious literary language. One of the central figures to credit for this was Friedebert Tuglas.

The nine stories, and the essay, featured here were written during the World War One, or in the first years of Estonian independence in the early 1920s. They reflect the troubled spirit of the times, but exhibit the influence of a wide selection of writers, ranging from O. Wilde and M. Gorky, to F. Nietzsche and Edgar Allan Poe. The subject matter of Tuglas' stories represented here ranges from a starving prisoner, via a luckless pharmacist's hallucinations from childhood, a wandering soldier who encounters weird spirits, to a young man sitting in a park, accosted by a devilish lunatic who wants to introduce a new brand of devil worship to the world.

Isabella graced the covers of Vogue, Harper's Bazaar, and Vanity Fair, becoming one of the most iconic models of the 1980s. Her acting career includes such films as David Lynch's Blue Velvet and Wild at Heart, Campbell Scott and Stanley Tucci's Big Night, Peter Weir's Fearless, and The Saddest Music in the World directed by Guy Maddin. Isabella wrote the script to My Dad is 100 Years Old, also directed by Guy Maddin, an homage to her father, the filmmaker Roberto Rossellini, and her mother, Ingrid Bergman. Green Porno is Isabella's directorial debut. She lives in New York City.