Insomnia: The Latvian Novel Unpublishable Under the Soviets
"The novel Insomnia ... possesses no artistic quality of any kind. In reality it is not a novel, but a pamphlet hostile towards Soviet rule."Continue Reading →
Fiction: Saulius Šaltenis – Diary of a Jewish Girl
Esther Levinson is being sheltered by a Lithuanian couple, Vladas and Milda, who have renamed her Eliza and are passing her off as their nieceContinue Reading →
Twenty Speakers, But Three Poets: Writing in Livonian
Two books of poetry originally written in the Livonian language, spoken by just twenty people, have recently appeared in English translationContinue Reading →
Revealing a City of Legends, Myths and Stories: the Book of Riga
Almost every single corner of Riga has its own story. The Book of Riga offers some of them up, and will hopefully lead you to many more.Continue Reading →
"It Flew Like a Shooting Star": Sartre and De Beauvoir's Week in Soviet Lithuania
In July 1965, Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir arrived in Soviet-occupied Vilnius. Their week-long stay in Lithuania was to leave a deep impressionContinue Reading →
"The Waters Must Break" – Pauls Bankovskis
"I discovered masturbation at almost the same time that I discovered the map of Latvia..."Continue Reading →
Siberian Exile: Blood, War and a Granddaughter's Reckoning
Siberian Exile tells the story of the author's grandmother, Ona, deported to deepest Siberia during Lithuania's occupation by the Soviet UnionContinue Reading →
"Someone Always Pays": Siberian Exile and Nazi Collaboration in a Single Family
An interview with the Lithuanian-Canadian author Julija Šukys, whose most recent book found her unearthing troubling secrets about her family's pastContinue Reading →
Fiction: Jaroslavas Melnikas – "The Grand Piano Room"
"What was strange was not the fact that the piano room had disappeared, but that it had ever actually existed"Continue Reading →
Existential Fairy Tales: An Interview with Lithuanian Author Rasa Aškinytė
"The surface layer of fairy tales is simple, and it creates an illusion that we can understand them easily. It’s the same with everything in life."Continue Reading →
Fiction: The Easiest – Rasa Aškinytė
"I know who I was in my previous lives (although I might have mixed up the order of events)..."Continue Reading →
Lichen – Adam Cullen
If I had a car/ if we had time/ I'd take you/ first to a ferry/ and then/ over sea/ island-bound...Continue Reading →