JAN KAUS (born 1971) is an Estonian poet, prosaist, esseist, translater and literary critic. He has writen 13 books and translated five novels from Finnish into Estonian, for example Sofi Oksanen's novel Purge. Kaus' own poetry has been translated into Finnish, Russian and Swedish. This year he has published two books – Tallinna kaart (The map of Tallinn), a collection of miniature stories devoted to Kaus' longtime hometown Tallinn and a novel Ma olen elus (I am alive) focused on mental heritage remaining through the generations, the conflict between the traditions and economical intrests and the psychological aspects of human mind.

During the years 2004–2007 Kaus was the chairman of the Estonian Writers´ Union. He has also worked as an editor of essais and literary issues in cultural cultural magazine Sirp. Kaus organise annually the HeadRead international literature festival in Tallinn.

Jan Kaus' multicreativity appears also in the music field. He is the artistic director, the autor of lyrics and the composer of the band called Jan Helsing, which published its first album this year.