L I T E R A T U R E

Poetry: Elīna Līce, Silvestrs Solovjevs, Paula Bička, Patrīcija Kuzmina, Elīna Timma, Dace Vansoviča and Laima Martinskis;

Prose: Egīls Venters, Ēriks Kūlis, Gvido Drage & Tatjana Zaharova, Inga Raipala, Dace Upe, Sandra Dieziņa, Lauris Bērziņš, Anda Ogriņa and Maija Migla-Streiča.

 

T R A N S L A T I O N S

Ilze Lāce translates “Dandelions in the Grass”, an essay by Ukrainian writer Natālija Kavera-Bezjuka;

Dagnija Dreika translates from the French “Frost on the Sea”, poems by Dominika Zālītis, a Canadian Latvian.

 

H I S T O R Y

Historian Jānis Zālītis tells the story of Vilhelms Maksis Valters, one of many Latvians who in the late nineteenth century emigrated to seek fortune in America. Valters left behind his young wife, who subsequently became well-known as the writer Aspazija, and remarried under the name Elza Pliekšāne as the wife of Latvia’s equally famous poet, Rainis.

 

T H E A T E R

Theater critic Atis Rozentāls reports that last year’s theater season in Latvia focused heavily on the works of Rūdolfs Blaumanis (1863-1908). Rozentāls evaluates three of these productions, Ugunī at the National Theater of Latvia, Indrāni at the New Theater of Rīga, and Skroderdienas Silmačos at Valmiera Theater.

 

V I S U A L  A R T

Art editor Linda Treija gives an account of a multimedia production titled Kea and the Ark by Sebastienne Mundheim, celebrating the life and work of Kea Tawana (1935-2016), a self-taught artist in Newark NJ who built a three-story tall structure, her ark (later removed by city ordinance) just to show what a single person can create from worthless scrap material. Mundheim Is founder and director of White Box Theater in Philadelphia. Her hour-long production features puppetry, dance, and storytelling, and has been performed many times since its debut in 2023.

Theater director and playwright Dace Micāne Zālīte interviews Iveta Vecenāne (1962) a textile artist specializing in classical tapestry weaving techniques. Her solo exhibit at the Rothko Museum in Daugavpils, Latvia, from April to August 2026 was titled “Transposition. The Rothko Motif”. Mark Rothko produced many abstract watercolor paintings from 1941-1947. Vecenane’s tapestries reproduce many of them on a much larger scale.

 

O P I N I O N

TV Journalist Kārlis Streips, feeling free after his program on TV-24 was recently cancelled, expresses his personal opinions on the upcoming (October 3) parliamentary elections in Latvia. Streips, born in Chicago in 1960, has been settled in Latvia since 1991.

 

B O O K  R E V I E W S

• Marika Aņisko invites us to read two books of modern-day legends and fairytales, Kundziņsalas teikas by Andris Zeibots, and Pasakas par lopiem, by Imants Liepiņš;

• Viesturs Vecgrāvis reviews Anatols Immermanis, Amanda Aizpuriete, Māris Melgalvs dzīvē un literatūrā by Māra Vilde and Adris Bernāts;

• Gundega Zēhauza: Es savu dzīvošanu ierakstu vēstulēs, the letters of Ilze Indrāne (1927-2025) to her contemporaries,

• Ingus Barovskis: Anna Auziņa. Kāpostu zupa, collected poems written 2019-2004;

• Laimdota Ločmele: Dace Rukšāne, Sarkanais un melnais, un baltais, the closing work in a tetrology on history as seen from a woman’s perspective;

• Lāsma Gaitniece: Sultanova N. Latvija un Azerbaidžana. Vēsture dzīvesstāstos. // Latvia and Azerbaijan, History through life stories;

• Eva Mārtuža: Džena Andersone. Pilsētas putni. Poetry;

• Lita Silova: Māris Gutenmorgens Bērziņš. Klēpja dievs, a novel, and

• Kristīne Ilziņa: Biruta Jonuškaite. Maranta, a novel translated from the Lithuanian by Emija Grigorjeva.