Zwischen Eismeer und Lysergsäureblues – Lettische Literatur erleben: Autorenlesung mit Dace Vīgante & Vilis Kasims

In the organizer's words:

Immerse yourself in the fascinating world of contemporary Latvian literature!

The authors Dace Vīgante and Vilis Kasims will take you on a journey into moving stories about memory, identity and the limits of reality with their works "Eismeer" and "Lysergsäureblues".

You can look forward to a captivating reading, exciting insights into the Latvian literary scene and a discussion with the two authors about their works, inspirations and writing processes. Afterwards, you will have the opportunity to purchase books and have them signed.

The event will be held in German and English.

In "Sea of Ice", Dace Vīgante paints a sensitive portrait of several women whose fates are intertwined by family ties and the upheavals of the 20th century in Latvia. In poetic language, she tells of alienation, hidden pain and the faint hope of breaking through the coldness of the past. Translated from the Latvian by Bettina Bergmann.

In the 37 texts of "Lysergsäureblues", with short prose, ultra-short stories and poetry prose, the Riga author Vilis Kasims tells of a strange everyday life. Sometimes a homeless man sits on the narrator's shoulder and makes him realize that all his efforts are useless anyway, sometimes satellite TV brings real color into life or an old radio serves as a link to memory. Reality at the turn of the millennium in the north of Eastern Europe. Translated from Latvian by Lil Reif.

Dace Vīgante (1970) is a writer, editor and head of the "Literary Academy" prose workshop of the Latvian Writers' Association. She graduated from the Faculty of Law of the Latvian State University. Since 2016, she has published three collections of short stories and one novel. Her short story collection "Ice Orange" (2016), including the long story "Sea of Ice", was nominated for the Latvian Literary Award for Outstanding Debut and the public media award "Kilograms kultūras". The novel "The Romantic" (2022) was nominated for the Latvian Literature Prize for best prose work and the public media prize "Kilograms kultūras" and translated into Estonian. The stories have been translated into Lithuanian, Chinese, German, English and Armenian.

Vilis Kasims (1986) is a Latvian author, translator, editor and literary agent. He has published two novels, a collection of short stories and a novel in essays. His works have been translated into English, German, Catalan and Finnish. He translates from English, Russian, Catalan and Spanish himself and has published around 20 translations to date, including Frank Herbert's "Dune" trilogy, Sergei Dovlatov's "The Zone" and Bob Dylan's "Chronicles. Volume One". Originally from a small village in northern Latvia, he has lived and worked in London and Barcelona, but has now settled in Riga.

Andreas Rostek, born in 1955, is a journalist, translator and publisher of edition.fotoTAPETA. He studied political science in Berlin and Bologna. He was one of the co-founders of the daily newspaper taz and worked for many years as an editor, foreign correspondent, editorial director and television editor. He lived for several years in Rome and Lugano as well as in Berlin and Washington, is married and lives in Berlin again.

André Störr, born in 1975 in Merseburg, studied law at the University of Jena and cultural management at the University of Music Weimar. After graduating, worked as a lawyer, from 2010 as a lawyer in various Thuringian ministries. Founded the Friedrich Mauke publishing house in 2019. Since then, always on the lookout for good literature as a publisher, especially in Central and Eastern Europe.

Aiga Šemeta, born 1983 in Cēsis, Latvia, translates, interprets, teaches Latvian and researches Latvian cultural and media history. She studied German language and literature in Riga and Freiburg and has lived in Berlin for many years. She spans her professional life along the Baltic Sea - between Riga, Greifswald and Berlin.