The Book of Riga does much more than transport the reader to Latvia’s capital. Part of Comma Press’s ‘Reading the…
April 2018 – Baltic Countries
Nora Ikstena’s magnificient Soviet Milk was most worthy of my efforts as a translator in tackling its inherent challenges. How to…
This is an invaluable memoir of Latvia’s recent past, covering a span of five decades, from the end of WWII…
Eriks Ādamsons’ 1937 collection of short stories is among the earliest works of short, Latvian modernist prose. It portrays humans…
The title of Belševica’s 1969 poetry collection – Annual Rings – holds special meaning, connecting with the ontology of Goethe’s…
Regīna Ezera’s 1977 novel is a brilliant documentation of the decade while also presenting timeless themes and attitudes, expressed through…
In George Orwell’s novel 1984, O’Brien says to Winston: ‘But at present power is only a word so far as…
Why the Baltic countries? It’s a question I’ve been asked many times since Vagabond Voices started publishing novels from the…
In Reading Rilke, his reflections on translating the poet, William H. Gass equates reading and translating and coins the term…
You are no better than anyone. You are no worse than anyone. You have been given the world. Look what…
In 1940, when Estonia was occupied by the Soviet Union, the attempted obliteration of its literature began. By 1949, thirty…
In Plague Grave, a story of betrayal, the first-person narrator has grown up in strange ignorance of her origin. Her…
