The literary productions, journalistic writings, and political activism of Imants Ziedonis make him one of the most important personalities on the twentieth-century Latvian cultural scene. Central to his multifaceted creativity is the idea of tending: applying oneself to the care, preservation, and development of the world of ideas, of the self, and of society. In outlining this motif, Ziedonis effectively blends his love of Latvian folklore and his appreciation for values fortified by centuries of history with an experimental search for new forms and modes of poetic expression.

The son of a fisherman, Ziedonis was born on 3 May 1933 on the Courland seashore, in the village of Ragaciems, county of Sloka. In 1952 he completed his secondary education at the high school of Tukums. His principal interests at the time were agriculture, mathematics, and literature; he was especially drawn to the Scandinavian authors Knut Hamsun, Henrik Ibsen, Selma Lagerlö...