Download or read book The Book of Riga written by Pauls Bankovskis and published by Comma Press. This book was released on 2018-04-12 with total page 144 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A suicide attempt, staged to attract as much attention as possible, from the top of St. Peter’s Church, quickly evolves into an outlandish and absurd, televised spectacle... When a PA is invited into her boss’s office one day to observe a protest unfold, just as he predicts, in the streets below, she begins to suspect his powers of foresight might extend beyond mere business matters... Finally moving into the house of her dreams, on the island of Kīpsala, a single mother discovers a strange affinity with the previous occupant... Riga may be over 800 years old as a city, but its status as capital of an independent Latvia is only a century old, with half of that time spent under Soviet rule. Despite this, it has established itself as a vibrant, creative hub, attracting artists, performers, and writers from across the Baltic region. The stories gathered here chronicle this growth and on-going transformation, and offer glimpses into the dark humour, rich history, contrasting perspectives, and love of the mythic, that sets the city’s artistic community apart. As its history might suggest, Riga is a work in progress; and for many of the characters in these stories, it is the possibilities of what the city might become, more than merely what it is now, that drives the imagination of its people. This book is published with the support of the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia and The Latvian Writers Union. Foreword by former President of Latvia (1999-2007) Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga. Translated from the Latvian by Kaija Straumanis, Suzanne McQuade, Uldis Balodis, Ieva Lešinska, Mārta Ziemelis and Žanete Vēvere Pasqualini.

Download or read book Soviet Milk written by Nora Ikstena and published by Peirene Press. This book was released on 2018-03-08 with total page 202 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The literary bestseller that took the Baltics by storm now published for the first time in English. This novel considers the effects of Soviet rule on a single individual. The central character in the story tries to follow her calling as a doctor. But then the state steps in. She is deprived first of her professional future, then of her identity and finally of her relationship with her daughter. Banished to a village in the Latvian countryside, her sense of isolation increases. Will she and her daughter be able to return to Riga when political change begins to stir? Why Peirene chose to publish this book: At first glance this novel depicts a troubled mother-daughter relationship set in the the Soviet-ruled Baltics between 1969 and 1989. Yet just beneath the surface lies something far more positive: the story of three generations of women, and the importance of a grandmother giving her granddaughter what her daughter is unable to provide – love, and the desire for life. 'Nora Ikstena is proving that Latvia is speaking in a bold and original voice.' Rosie Goldsmith, broadcaster and reviewer 'Nora Ikstena's fiction opens up new paths not only for Latvian literature in English translation but for English literature itself.' Jeremy Davis, Dalkey Archive Press

Download or read book Among the Living and the Dead A Tale of Exile and Homecoming written by Inara Verzemnieks and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2017-07-11 with total page 288 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice A BookPage Best Book of the Year "This exquisitely written book shows how recovery can come generations later through rebuilding connections—to people, the natural world, the past." —Robin Shulman, Washington Post "It’s long been assumed of the region where my grandmother was born…that at some point each year the dead will come home," Inara Verzemnieks writes in this exquisite story of war, exile, and reconnection. Her grandmother’s stories recalled one true home: the family farm left behind in Latvia, where, during WWII, her grandmother Livija and her grandmother’s sister, Ausma, were separated. They would not see each other again for more than 50 years. Raised by her grandparents in Washington State, Inara grew up among expatriates, scattering smuggled Latvian sand over the coffins of the dead, singing folk songs about a land she had never visited. When Inara discovers the scarf Livija wore when she left home, in a box of her grandmother’s belongings, this tangible remnant of the past points the way back to the remote village where her family broke apart. There it is said the suspend their exile once a year for a pilgrimage through forests and fields to the homes they left behind. Coming to know Ausma and the trauma of her exile to Siberia under Stalin, Inara pieces together Livija’s survival through years as a refugee. Weaving these two parts of the family story together in spellbinding, lyrical prose, she gives us a profound and cathartic account of loss, survival, resilience, and love.

Download or read book Five Fingers written by Māra Zālīte and published by Deep Vellum Publishing. This book was released on 2020-05-01 with total page 233 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Five-year-old Laura was born in one of Joseph Stalin’s prison camps in Siberia. When the book opens, she and her parents are on their long journey back to Latvia, a country Laura knows only from the exuberant descriptions that whirled about the Gulag. Upon her arrival, however, she must come to terms with the conflicting images of the life she sees around her and the fairytale Latvia she grew up hearing about and imagining. Based on the author’s life, and written in lush language that defies the narrative’s many hardships, Five Fingers tells the story of a girl who moves between worlds in the hopes of finding a Latvia that she can call home.

Download or read book Green Crow written by Kristine Ulberga and published by Peter Owen Publishers. This book was released on 2018-05-30 with total page 240 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Part of the Peter Owen World Series: BalticsInstitutionalized in an asylum, a woman with a record of hallucinations commits her life story to paper. She records, from the age of six, her earliest memories of a drunken and abusive father, the strange men her mother introduced to repair the family, the imaginary forest to which she would run for safety and, of course, the talking Green Crow who appeared when she most needed her. The Green Crow is a conceited, boisterous creature who follows the novel's nameless protagonist throughout her life, until the day that the crow's presence begins to embarrass her. Confined to a tedious domestic life, she is desperate to hide the crow's very existence. Failing to do so, she winds up in a psychiatric hospital. Can she repress and renounce her acerbic, sharp-beaked daemon - or learn to love herself, bird and all? Translated from the Latvian by Zanete Vevere Pasqualini

Download or read book Latvia written by Mara Kalnins and published by Oxford University Press. This book was released on 2015-01-04 with total page 224 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The history of the Latvian people begins some four and a half millennia ago with the arrival of the proto-Baltic Indo-Europeans to northern Europe. One branch of these migrants coalesced into a community which evolved a distinctive and remarkably robust culture and language, and which eventually developed into a loose federation of tribal kingdoms that stretched from the shores of the Baltic sea to the upper Dniepr river. But these small independent kingdoms were unable to resist the later invasion of the Teutonic Knights in 1201, an invasion that initiated nearly eight hundred years of helotry for the Latvians in their own domains. In the centuries of domination by successive European powers that followed, the inhabitants nonetheless preserved a powerful sense of identity, fostered by their ancient language, oral literature, songs and customs. These in turn informed and gave impetus to the rise of national consciousness in the nineteenth century and the political activities of the twentieth which brought the modern nation-state of Latvia into being. This book traces the genesis and growth of that nation, its endurance over centuries of conquest and oppression, the process by which it achieved its independence, and its status as a member of the European community in the twenty-first century.

Download or read book High Tide written by Inga Ābele and published by . This book was released on 2013 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Told more or less in reverse chronological order, High Tide is the story of Ieva, her dead lover, her imprisoned husband and the way their youthful decisions dramatically impacted the rest of their lives. Taking place over three decades, High Tide functions as a sort of psychological mystery, with the full scope of Ieva's personal situation and the relationship between the three main characters only becoming clear at the end of the novel. One of Latvia's most notable young writers, Abele is a fresh voice in European fiction, her prose is direct, evocative and exceptionally beautiful.

Download or read book DOOM 94 written by Jānis Joņevs and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Doom 94 is Jonevs' debut novel, published first as Jelgava 94 in Latvia in 2013 and was quickly proved to be a big hit and bestseller. Translated into 11 languages already, it is here for the first time in English. The story is set in the 1990s in the Latvian city of Jelgava and looks at the burgeoning craze during this decade for the alternative culture of heavy metal music. Jonevs takes the reader deep inside the world of music, combining the intimate diary of a youngster trying to find himself by joining a subculture, as well as a skilful, detailed, and almost documentary-like depiction of the beginnings of the second independence of Latvia-where Jonevs is the first writer to stir up memories of this period through a fully-fledged literary depiction. Doom 94 is a portrait of a generation searching for their identity and up against the world, trying not to become 'one of them'. But is it for real? Can any adult keep the promise made as a child?

Download or read book In the Shadow of Death written by Rūdolfs Blaumanis and published by . This book was released on 2018 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Rūdolfs Blaumanis's 1899 short story masterpiece, based on a contemporary newspaper account, tells of several fishermen lost at sea after the ice floe on which they work calves off and drifts away rapidly. One by one, the thirteen men and a boy must deal with the creeping reality that they may not see the mainland -- or their loved ones -- again. There is fish to eat, and two horses if necessary, but the very surface of the floe is eroding steadily ... and the nights are cold and terrible. Without ever moralising or over-elaborating, Blaumanis coolly and efficiently observes the state of each of the main characters in turn, whether natural leaders, optimists, craven opportunists, terrified, stoic, compassionate or alienated. In the shadow of encroaching death, each must come to some kind of reckoning.

Download or read book Library of Congress Subject Headings written by Library of Congress and published by . This book was released on 1998 with total page 1174 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Library of Congress Subject Headings written by Library of Congress. Cataloging Policy and Support Office and published by . This book was released on 2007 with total page pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Library of Congress Subject Headings written by Library of Congress. Office for Subject Cataloging Policy and published by . This book was released on 1992 with total page 1360 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Fiction in French Fiction in Soviet written by British Library and published by Walter de Gruyter. This book was released on 2013-02-07 with total page 464 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt:

Download or read book Baltic Facades written by Aldis Purs and published by Reaktion Books. This book was released on 2013-02-15 with total page 206 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania are often grouped together as the Baltic States, but these three Eastern European countries, tied together historically, are quite different. Although each is struggling to find its place within Europe and fighting to preserve its own identity, the idea of the Baltic States is a façade. In this book, Aldis Purs dispels the myth of a single, coherent Baltic identity, presenting a radical new view of the region. Baltic Façades illuminates the uniqueness of these three countries and locates them within the larger context of European history, also revealing the similarities they share with the rest of the continent. He also examines the anxiety the people of Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania feel about their own identities and how others see them. Giving equal weight to developments in politics, economics, and social and cultural trends, he places contemporary events in a longer perspective than traditional Cold War-inspired views of the region, tracing the countries under Soviet rule after the end of World War II through their declarations of independence in the early 1990s and their admission to the European Union in 2004. Baltic Façades is an enlightening look at these three separate, though related, Eastern European countries.

Download or read book Pietr the Latvian written by Georges Simenon and published by Penguin UK. This book was released on 2013-11-07 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The first novel which appeared in Georges Simenon's famous Maigret series, in a gripping new translation by David Bellos. Inevitably Maigret was a hostile presence in the Majestic. He constituted a kind of foreign body that the hotel's atmosphere could not assimilate. Not that he looked like a cartoon policeman. He didn't have a moustache and he didn't wear heavy boots. His clothes were well cut and made of fairly light worsted. He shaved every day and looked after his hands. But his frame was proletarian. He was a big, bony man. His firm muscles filled out his jacket and quickly pulled all his trousers out of shape. He had a way of imposing himself just by standing there. His assertive presence had often irked many of his own colleagues. In Simenon's first novel featuring Maigret, the laconic detective is taken from grimy bars to luxury hotels as he traces the true identity of Pietr the Latvian. Penguin is publishing the entire series of Maigret novels in new translations. This novel has been published in previous translations as The Case of Peter the Lett and Maigret and the Enigmatic Lett. 'Compelling, remorseless, brilliant' John Gray 'One of the greatest writers of the twentieth century . . . Simenon was unequalled at making us look inside, though the ability was masked by his brilliance at absorbing us obsessively in his stories' Guardian 'A supreme writer . . . unforgettable vividness' Independent

Download or read book The Wine of Eternity written by Knuts Lesinš and published by U of Minnesota Press. This book was released on 1957-01-01 with total page 203 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Wine of Eternity was first published in 1957. Minnesota Archive Editions uses digital technology to make long-unavailable books once again accessible, and are published unaltered from the original University of Minnesota Press editions. Ever since the small Baltic nation of Latvia became a part of the Soviet Union in 1940, its identity has been blurred to Western eyes. Many of its people have left their country in voluntary or forced exile. But, wherever they are today, the Latvians still cherish and preserve a rich national heritage of folklore and culture. Much of this is revealed in these stories, the work of an established Latvian writer who became a wartime refugee from his country. This volume makes the work of Knuts Lesins available in English for the first time, although his writing has been published extensively in Europe in the original Latvian. In addition to the stories, the author provides a background sketch of the history and culture of Latvia. While much of the fascinating folklore of the country is interwoven in the stories, they are not primarily folk tales. They are perhaps best described as penetrating glimpses into human lives at moments of crisis or decision which reveal an individual's character and philosophy.

Download or read book A Woman in Amber written by Agate Nesaule and published by Soho Press. This book was released on 2016-11-22 with total page 258 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: American Book Award Winner: A “stunning” memoir of surviving WWII Latvia—and the long journey to healing that followed (The New York Times Book Review). “A heartbreaking yet inspiring memoir of tragedy and healing,” A Woman in Amber tells the story of how the occupation of Latvia during World War II affected a woman’s relationship with her mother and husband for years to come (Tim O’Brien). Though Agate Nesaule eventually immigrated to the United States and became successful in her professional life, she found herself suffering from depression and unable to come to terms with its cause—until she found her voice and began to share what happened to her and her family at the hands of invading Russian soldiers. In a true story that “draws the reader forward with the suspense of a novel,” Nesaule reveals the effects of hunger, both physical and emotional, in stories about begging Russian soldiers for food, the abusive relationship with her first husband, and the redemption that came when she met her second (The New York Times Book Review).