Of Hard Joy: Half a Century of Viivi Luik's Creations. Poetry

Viivi Luik has been active in Estonian literature for half a century: from the times of Soviet censorship to regained independence. Her renowned novels Seitsmes rahukevad (The Seventh Spring of Peace, 1985) and Ajaloo ilu (The Beauty of History, 1991) have been published in a number of foreign languages. Her first collection of poetry Pilvede püha (Holiday of Clouds) appeared in 1965. Since then ten more collections have followed: Taevaste tuul (Wind of the Skies, 1966), Lauludemüüja (Song Vendor, 1968), H l (Voice, 1968), Ole kus oled (Stay Where You Are, 1971), Pildi sisse minek (Entering a Picture, 1973), P liskevad (Perpetual Spring, 1975), Maap lsed asjad (Earthly Matters, 1978), and R ngast r must (Of Hard Joy, 1982). In addition, she has published three books of selected verse together with the volume of collected verse (2006), as well as four books of fiction, three volumes of essays, several children’s books and two dramas. Many Estonian songwriters have appreciated her lyrics, evident in dozens of music books and recordings. Guided by a methodologically holistic perspective and moving towards a “unified field theory” of literary criticism, this contribution to Luik scholarship makes available, for the first time, a biobibliographical comparative introduction of all of her works for the international audience. It illuminates the broadly representative character of her oeuvre and shows how Luik charts the course for an entire generation of “Soviet” writers of the Baltics as “border states”.