In 1917 August, Gailit along with some other writers and poets, founded a literary group called "Siuru" with which their erotic poems caused some scandal. The early prose of Gailit also contained erotic content and satire. Until the middle of the 1920s Gailit was strongly influenced by neo-romanticism. Oswald Spengler and Knut Hamsun also exerted great influence in his work. His famous novel Toomas Nipernaadi (which was made into a movie in 1983) describes the romantic and adventurous life of a vagabond. Some of his novels covered political issues such as the novel Isade maa (1935) which addressed the subject of the Estonian 1918-20 war of independence. Gailit's novel Ule rahutu vee (published in 1951 in Gothenburg, Sweden) concerns the tragic event of having to leave ones homeland.