Rare first edition of Arved Viirlaid's classic Graves without crosses, in English language.

Published in Toronto, Canada, 1972. Size ca 17x24 cm, 434 pages, hardcover with dust jacket. DJ shows some wear and smaller tears (NB! Please note that on photo is not the exact copy), otherwise in good condition.

Arved Viirlaid was an Estonian-Canadian novelist & poet, born on 11 April 1922 in Padise, Harju County, Estonia. He fought in the Estonian regiment in Finland during the Second World War, returning to Estonia in 1944. He escaped from Soviet-occupied Estonia, settling first in the United Kingdom, and then moving to Canada in 1953.

Viirlaid has published 9 novels and several collections of poetry. His first novel, Tormiaasta (The Year of Storms) was published in 1949. In 1952, he published Ristideta hauad (Graves Without Crosses), which has been translated from Estonian into seven other languages. The English translation appeared in 1972, with a preface by John Diefenbaker. His 1965 novel, Sadu jõkke (Rain for the River) has also been translated into English.

He was awarded the Order of the National Coat of Arms, 3rd Class, by the President of Estonia in 1997. The writer renounced the decoration.

Viirlaids literary work started after the Second World War in London, after he, as a young man, had fought against the Soviet-Russian occupying armies both in Estonia and Finland, had fled before the end of the war to Sweden, and had found a temporary refuge in Great Britain.

In 1953 he went on to Canada, where he settled permanently. In exile, he continued to write in his native Estonian, in which he has published eight novels, a collection of short narratives, and seven books of poetry.

Because of his radical denouncement of Stalinist terror and the occupying communist regime, he was persona non grata in his native Estonia under Soviet rule as late as Gorbachovs perestroika.

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