Poetry Day award goes to Ivars Šteinbergs
The annual Poetry Day award winner is Ivars Šteinbergs. The award was given for his debut collection of poems "Beehive".
Ivars Šteinbergs, born in 1991, is a Latvian poet, translator of poetry, and a journalist. Since 2012, he has been writing poems, translating and interviewing writers for various outlets – online platforms and literary magazines. In 2017, he received a Fulbright Scholarship to study Comparative Literature in the State University of New York at Binghamton.
For the first time the "Diaries" and "The Development of Aesthetic Thought in Latvia" by Milda Palēviča have been published
Milda Palēviča's diary entries cover the period from 1911 to 1972, while her essay "The Development of Aesthetic Thought in Latvia" was written in 1960. Both texts are being published for the first time.
Milda Palēviča (1889–1972) was the first graduate doctor of philosophy, a pioneer of aesthetics as an academic discipline in Latvia, and a representative of liberal feminism. She received her doctorate in philosophy from the Sorbonne University in Paris (1925), and taught at the Latvian Conservatoire and the Art Academy. However, for various reasons, her place in the history of ideas has not been marked, nor has there been any recognition of her achievements.
"Diaries" of Milda Palēviča, the daughter of the prominent educator Indriķis Palēvičs, which she wrote throughout her life, testifies to the arduous journey of a determined, talented woman towards the knowledge she sought, without shying away from the often dramatic challenges of her personal and professional life.
Supported by: State Culture Capital Foundation
Buy: Milda Palēviča "Diaries" and "The Development of Aesthetic Thought in Latvia"
The fourth collection of poems "Flea Circus" by Arvis Viguls
“For me, this is a book of opposites – the absurd and the fantastic, which seems to be trying its best to fit into reality, are interspersed with autobiographical motifs and real facts, which in the end take revenge on the imagination, proving to be no less weird than the fruits of my imagination. The pandemic has put a bold end to this collection, most of which was written before the spring of 2020 – at times it seems that the whole world has moved to live in one of the Flea Circus poems,” says the author.
Arvis Viguls is a poet and poetry translator. Viguls’ previous collections of poems have received several literary awards: the Annual Latvian Literature Award, the Poetry Days Award twice, the Ojārs Vācietis Award, etc. In 2017, Viguls was included in the list of the 10 most interesting and important young European writers published by the network of literary organisations “Literature Across Frontiers”. Viguls’ poems have been translated and published in more than 20 languages, and his poetry collection Needle Manuscript has been published in Spain, Germany and Croatia.
Supported by: State Culture Capital Foundation
On the 85th anniversary of Knuts Skujenieks a selection of European folk songs has been published
"A folk song has no time limitations. The sadness, laughter and sorrow of each nation are their own, but at the same time they are common," writes Knuts Skujenieks. The book is published on the 85th anniversary of the poet and translator.
The folk songs translated by Skujenieks have been published in several books, and the translations are also collected in the 2nd volume of his Writings. The selection I only Love when I Sing with 30 folk songs of European nations is the essence of Skujenieks' life's work.
Supported by: State Culture Capital Foundation, programme "KultūrELPA"
A selection of Dmitry Prigov's poems has been published in the black series
The artist and sculptor Dmitry Prigov (1940-2007) is one of the most prominent Russian poets – a representative of the Moscow school of conceptualism, a dissident who was published only in foreign publications during the Soviet period. He was repressed for his openly ironic and scathing political poetry, forcibly committed to a psychiatric clinic after a public appearance in 1986, and released only after the intervention of influential Soviet and foreign writers.
Prigov's poetry is characterised by ironic conceptualism, stylisation and the use of naive elements; his texts caricature the rigidity and flatness as well as the emphasised moralisation of Soviet official language. One of Prigov's poetic tasks was to deconstruct rigid structures of thought, choosing not only the collective prejudices of Soviet society, but also philosophical, religious and aesthetic motifs, giving the reader the opportunity to "continue" the work begun and to invest a certain intellectual effort in the reading process." (Ilmārs Šlāpins)
Supported by: State Culture Capital Foundation