No one lies here. Review of the best prose works of the year / Article

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Kristine Ulberga “Under the dome”

(Publishing house “Dienas Book”)

The writer Kristīne Ulberga has been nominated for the Latvian Literary Award of the Year several times and received it twice. In 2017, the title of the best prose work is won by the book “Green Crow”, and in 2023, the children’s story book “Kas mammai somā?” is gaining attention. “Under the dome” is Kristine Ulberg’s fourth novel for adults, and it poignantly and openly reflects on family traumas, pretending, wounds that, having turned into scars in adulthood, continue to adorn the skin and heart.

One of the most vivid metaphors in the novel is the dome – life that passes under the dome like a circus show with all the pretense and deception that follows from it. Yes, also makeup to hide behind. The cover of the book is decorated with the sad Pierrot, and it suggests not only a life lived in mourning and melancholy, but also the comic nature of this image, in which both the more depressing and less humorous uplifting sides are characteristic.

One accidental stroke of make-up and Piero risks turning into a clown, but Kristine Ulberg does not allow such accidents.

The characters she writes play out the theater of life with the audience and the main actors, with the extras and the all-attention-grabbing cat. You already know that animals and children are always going to steal the spotlight, and the writer uses this to her advantage when she talks about family trauma and how it shapes a person’s life. Kristine Ulberga in this novel is harsh but gentle, sharply direct but gentle, and all this in the name of a good goal – to remind and not lie about the silent traumas in us.

We would like to call this one of the saddest and most sensitive works of Kristine Ulberga, where every nuance forms a single whole – a dome under which everything happens, including the opportunity to get a completely different role, life path or voice.

Daina Tabūn “Witches”

(Publishing house “Ascendum”)

After the collection of stories “The First Time”, which was nominated for the Latvian Literature of the Year Award in the “Brightest Debut” category in 2015, Daina Tabūnas’ return to the literary field was awaited patiently and hopefully. In 2022, the writer publishes a children’s book “Lasis Stasis und Atlasijas okeāns”, and in 2023 the novel “Raganas” shines, which won not only the Latvian Literature of the Year Award, but also a nomination for the European Union Literature Award.

A modern woman’s self-searching song – this could briefly describe Daina Tabūnas’ return to adult literature, the novel “Witches”. The story of thirty-year-old Alma, who after a divorce can no longer understand herself or deal with her own experiences, is so well known. With divorce and personal crisis comes despair that only a wise man or guru can sympathize with. Alma finds one, and in the scenes where she listens to the shaman’s message or discusses with her friends about the meaninglessness of love, modern women will once again see a lot of recognition. In parallel to Alma’s story, “Witches” reaches into antiquity and reflects on the witchy nature of women through the ages, its destructive and healing power, which often tends to be self-destructive.

The strength of Daina Tabūnas’s novel is its rich, fluid language and absolute honesty – not trying to indulge the reader’s expectations, society’s restrictions or potential feminine codes that could dictate the novel’s voice or mood.

“Witches” proves that women, like every reader, have a special voice, perception, feeling and way of looking at the world that we ourselves create, conjure and invent.

Every woman who, in a moment of desperation, reached out and believed in the power of numerology, astrology or runes, will see a little bit of herself in “Witches”. However, apart from all that, the novel is also simply a well-written work, which brings up the topic of the relationship between a woman and a man, but above all – a woman’s self and strength.

Jen Anderson “Chalk Circles”

(Publishing house “Zvaigzne ABC”)

Jen Anderson entered literature relatively recently. After two years spent at the “Literary Academy”, the first collection of stories “Dadži” will be published in 2021, which won the recognition of observers and evaluators of the literary process and was nominated for the Latvian Literary Award of the Year as the best debut. A year later, the next collection “Sainis” is here, but in 2023, Jena Anderson’s third collection of stories “Krita aplii” will be published, which this year won a nomination in the “Best author’s work in prose” category.

Jena Anderson’s work is characterized by a sensitive immersion in the described object, and this is also noticeable in the collection “Chalk Circles”, where the author has not limited herself either by the gender or age of the central characters of the stories.

The cast includes both young and old, women and men, and each of the characters in Jen Anderson’s hands gets its own voice, its own compelling character. It is exciting to read stories in which the theme and environment of the judicial system, which is so close and familiar to the author, is played. For the reader, it is an opportunity to look through the keyhole into places or even minds, which cannot be entered without the author’s favor. At the end of the book, the title story of the collection “Chalk Circles” sounds strongly, because it vividly highlights the question of the conditions that form a personality, and how much influence each person’s life and path has on the family, the environment in which we grow and are formed. Grandma’s chalk circles can be protective, but they can also be like a curse or mental limitations that we risk living with for the rest of our lives.

Creating very distinct character voices and characters that don’t repeat themselves with seemingly minimal means is the strength of Jen Anderson as a writer. “Chalk Circles” is a compilation of stories that combines different people and their lives, and the author was able to see and highlight individual characteristics, external and also internal characteristics, without repeating either her characters or herself.

Sven Kuzmin “Beauty and Anxiety”

(Publishing house “Dienas Book”)

Sven Kuzmins has appeared in Latvian literature for at least a decade. He is called a multi-artist, because next to the author’s literary success, the fact that Sven Kuzmins is an actor and director of the theater “Nerten” is always mentioned, and he received his education in painting. The writer’s creative versatility and freedom to express himself in the languages ​​of various arts have made the author one of the brightest writers of his generation. “Beauty and restlessness” is Sven Kuzmin’s fourth book, the third that has received the attention of the Latvian Literature of the Year Award commission.

The series dedicated to the classics of Latvian literature “I am…” can be considered a difficult literary task. It requires a very careful study of the object being described, an equally careful delving into the author’s voice, bringing it to life on the pages, also the search for a possible original point of view and interaction with the reader, who often has his own ideas about the writer’s image. Sven Kuzmins reconstructs Kārli Skalbi in the novel “Beauty and Anxiety” – an author whose works are still well known to adults and children alike, the king of fairy tales, the king of sadness, an explorer of human darkness and depths. However, in shedding light on Karl Skalba before fairy tales and success, Sven Kuzmins and his novel do not follow either the easiest or the most predictable path. Lightness and beauty in the book are achieved with dialogues, which can be considered Sven Kuzmin’s strongest positions. They are apt and sharp-sighted, the kind that not only reconstruct Kārli Skalbi in the eyes of the readers of the novel, but polish this image to the highest point of credibility.

In the background of the writer’s personal life, turmoil bubbles up, the beautiful and the troubled soon become one lump, and Sven Kuzmin works confidently with both of these elements.

Sven Kuzmin’s novel “Beauty and Anxiety” is one of those in the “I am…” series, which defends the necessity of this series and proves the author’s skill in creating an original and independent message, which at the same time speaks of a historical figure and is a work of art in itself.

Margarita Pervenecka “Postgraduate course”

(Publishing house “Dienas Book”)

Margarita Perveņeckas is a bright and special phenomenon in Latvian literature. The author’s texts are neither easy nor simple to read, they always require not only literary, but also emotional, maybe even spiritual maturation. Playwright Margarita Pervenecka has written several plays and a movie screenplay, but the prose writer has written three books, one of which – the novel “Gaetāno Krematos: memories of light” – received the Latvian Literature of the Year award in 2011. After that – more than ten years of silence and emptiness, until Margarita Pervenecka returns in 2023 with the novel “Aspirantura”.

The silence that has reigned around Margarita Pervenecka for many years has thickened and become dense, resulting in a literary challenge – the novel “Aspirantura”. It appears in the local literary process as a surprise and a challenge – are there many who have the strength, patience and skills to read this text from cover to cover, where the literary intertwines with the exact world, where every page, paragraph, sentence and word is dense in its own sense and in which Margarita Pervenecka is determined to find and write the human core. A simultaneously possible and impossible mission as a mathematical equation to be solved, only to realize at the end of the solution that there is no answer. How to read a book that is impossible to read if you are not armed with human patience and literary tolerance.

In order to create such a literary text, its author must be familiar with the language. No matter how close the novel “Aspirantura” is to the exact world, it proves, first of all, the power, strength and power of language. Of course, also the skill of the author to use it.

I will not undertake the assessment of this literary achievement. It is impossible to do this, taking into account my rather fragmentary acquaintance with “Postgraduate Studies”. The book has settled on my bookshelf, waiting for a reader who is mature and literarily experienced enough to meet a text that may not be eager to meet at all. On the other hand – for whom are texts created, if not for the reader. In this case – for capable, brave and very patient.

Choose your favorite!

From March 29 to April 28, public voting for the “Latvijas Literaturas gada balvas 2024” will take place on the public media portal LSM, allowing readers to determine their preference.

Choose your favorite and authenticate with your e-mail or social media profile at the bottom of the vote! You can vote once a day.