Voor

Description

In one early morning in June 1940, shortly before the Soviet troops invade Estonia, a wagon train starts its journey from Tallinn, carrying a secret cargo of huge importance – gold bullions belonging to the Republic of Estonia to be deposited in Bank of Sweden. At the same time the wagon train moves on its dangerous journey, the Republic of Estonia ceases to exist. Decades pass, and the principle character Toomas Alajõe, the only member of the convoy still alive, visits his homeland, which is finally becoming independent again. He is the only one to know the actual fate of the wagon train, the only one who can carry the secret of this travel over the past decades to the present, along with a bitter balance of past, present and future – difficult and confused – a sign of the perilous historical fate of small nations! The title of the book incorporates the meaning of ”burden• and ”load•. Is the past a burden? What load is worth taking in the tribulations? What do hardships make of us? Are sacrifices meaningless?
The critics have compared the author’s style to W. Somerset Maugham’s. Like books by Maugham, his books always have an interesting story with unexpected turns, and they both have a spellbinding style of writing, which turns the characters of the book into flesh and blood people.