Novel
Tuuline rand
Not translated into English
Aadu Hint · 1951
Synopsis
On the coast of Saaremaa, at the turn of the century, a village lives off fish, driftwood and whatever the pastor and the baron are willing to leave it. The Tihu family has been settled there forever; the two brothers, Tõnis and Matis, do not want the same thing from their lives, and the son of one grows up between the two. A blind singing master goes from house to house. Then news arrives from the capital, where there is talk of crowds gathering and volleys of gunfire, and they must decide whether to go down and see.
Context
The four volumes appeared in Tallinn in 1951, 1954, 1960 and 1966, and the first was expanded the following year. The first offers a vast picture of the village on the eve of the 1905 revolution; the later ones narrow to individual destinies, up to the Second World War, and the sequel, published over fifteen years, bears the mark of the changes in the taste of its author and of his time. The first two volumes have been staged in an adaptation by A. Särev.
Who it is for
Four volumes in Estonian, never published in French or in English. One must know that the book was for a long time compulsory school reading in Soviet Estonia.
Prizes and reception
State Prize of the Soviet Republic of Estonia in 1967, and its author's major work.