Beauty Of History, The

Description: 1968. Riga. News of the Prague Spring washes across Europe, causing ripples on either side of the Iron Curtain. A young Estonian woman has agreed to pose as a model for a famous sculptor, who is trying to evade military service and escape to the West. Although the model has only a vague awareness of politics - her interest in life is primarily poetic - the consequences of the politics of both past and present repeatedly make themselves felt. Chance remarks overheard prompt memories of people and places, language itself becomes fluid, by turns deceptive and reassuring.The Beauty of History is a novel of poetic intensity, of fleeting moods and captured moments. It is powerfully evocative of life within the Baltic States during the Soviet occupation, and of the challenge to artists to express their individuality whilst maintaining at least an outward show of loyalty to the dominant ideology. Written on the cusp of independence, as Estonia and Latvia sought to regain their sovereignty in 1991, this is a novel that can be seen as an historic document - wistful, unsettling, and beautiful...Viivi Luik is one of Estonia's most highly-acclaimed and well-known writers. The Beauty of History has been published in eleven languages.

Author Biography: VIIVI LUIK (b. 1946) is one of the most highly-acclaimed and well-known writers in Estonia today. She has been a freelance writer since 1968, and has published eleven collections of poetry, several children's books, and three novels. Seitsmes rahukevad (The Seventh Spring of Peace) was published in 1985, and depicts rural life in 1950s Estonia through the eyes of a child. Ajaloo ilu - The Beauty of History - was first published in 1991.