Arved Viirlaid (11 April 1922–21 June 2015) participated as a combatant on the Finnish side in World War II. Later in exile, initially in London, living thereafter at length in Canada, he became one of the most acclaimed Estonian expatriate writers whose works have been translated the most. He dedicated himself to Estonia’s fight for freedom in his writing and his social activity. Nowadays, Viirlaid’s oeuvre and his combative pathos come across as being surprisingly topical. The basis of this publication is Arved Viirlaid’s speech entitled ‘Bottleneck – the Abyss’, which he gave in 1972 at the Worldwide Estonian Festival in Toronto. This speech is found in the Estonian Literary Museum. In this speech, with the help of Estonian literature, he stresses the need to preserve the Estonian mother tongue in exile, yet also pins his hopes on the younger generation that is growing up in the Estonian homeland and expresses his faith that one day Estonia will once again become an independent country. Viirlaid provides comparative examples from Estonian exile and the book market in the United States and Canada. He recognises that the Estonian readership in exile is ageing, yet he encourages reading and propagates Estonian books. He sees Estonian books as the primary guarantor for preserving the Estonian spirit even in multicultural conditions, to express the situation using contemporary terminology. Since he was powerless to use weapons to fight against the Soviet occupation of his Estonian homeland, Viirlaid chose the word as his means of combat. He was also one of the most successful in this field, extending the fight across linguistic boundaries.