Viivi Luik arrived on the Estonian literary scene as a Wunderkind on the crest of an excited wave of poetry in the 1960s. Her first collection of poems A Holiday of Clouds (Pilvede püha, 1965), published when she was only 18, was noted and approved by the critics. In total, she has published ten collections of poetry, the latest of which, Of Hard Joy (Rängast rõõmust), appeared already in 1982. The novels The Seventh Spring of Peace (Seitsmes rahukevad, 1985) and The Beauty of History (Ajaloo ilu, 1991), which followed her poetry, struck the audience with their highly poeticised language and the novelty of their subject matter. The first of these novels observes country life in Soviet Estonia seen through a child’s implacable eyes, the other reflects against the background of a love story the state of mind of Estonians and Latvians during the uprising in Prague in 1968. Both novels have been translated into several foreign languages and have been well received.

In recent years Viivi Luik has often published her polemical essays in the press, and these have dealt with the existence of man and the meaning of art in changing times. Her first collection of essays A Locker of One’s Own (Inimese kapike) contains 24 essays and presentations, some of which have already been published in Scandinavian newspapers or presented to various audiences in Europe. Many of these essays can be read as a background and explanation to her works. The longest text of the book “Seven Women”, earlier published in Toronto as a collector’s book, is an exact and compact historical sketch about the major role of women authors in Estonian poetry.

Being an East European, Luik demonstrates herself in an original and poetically fruitful situation: on the border of two worlds, two eras, light and shade. The last contrast also contains all the others – the barbaric zone of darkness, withdrawing to the East, and the past, where light was only for the rich and powerful, are contrasted to modern and plentiful Western world. Luik believes that the forthcoming end of the century will be accompanied by the birth of new men and new art, which she, like Milan Kundera, envisions to rise on the basis of kitsch. The best essay of this collection “Candied Monsters and Diluted Angels”, which also caused the largest amount of discussion, when it was first published, has been devoted to this subject.

Viivi Luik does not analyse or theorise in her essays and presentations. Her texts are inherently characterised by bold expression and an intuitive pursuit of truth, which may, now and then, allow some contradictions, and radiant images, which originate from her poetry. Ice, glass, blood and flesh dominate both her poetry and essays, which the critics have found to be full of childlike frankness, prophecy and adventurer’s challenge to obsolete ways of thinking.