Rullis, Talrids

Talrids Rullis, born in Ventspils in 1940, died in Riga in 2014.
He was a Latvian translator from Lithuanian and Russian (and even Ukrainian).
In 2008, Talrids Rullis received the St. Hieronymus Prize by the Lithuanian Literary Translators' Association.

Aizpuriete, Amanda

Amanda Aizpuriete was born in 1956 in Jurmala near Riga where she has been living until her death in October 2023. She studied linguistics and philosophy at the University of Latvia in Riga and at the Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow. She has worked as a radio journalist, proofreader and editor, and teaches literary writing.

Amanda Aizpuriete has translated numerous poets from Russian and German into Latvian, including Anna Akhmatova, Joseph Brodsky, Nikolai Gumilyov, Uwe Kolbe, and Georg Trakl. She has also translated numerous novels from German and English, including Virgina Woolf's Orlando and F. Scott Fitzgerald's The Great Gatsby.

Her own literary works have been translated into fourteen languages, including English, Finnish, German, Lithuanian, Russian, and Swedish. A large number of books of poetry have been published by Amanda Aizpuriete since 1976. In Germany, three of her collections were published by Rowohlt Verlag, translated by Manfred Peter Hein, thus having a major impact.

Amanda Aizpuriete has received several awards; in 1999 she received the Horst Bienek Prize for Poetry and most recently, in 2022, the renowned Vilenica Prize.

Sirma, Daina

Daina Sirma was born in Dikļi , Latvia, in 1958. She studied philology at the State University of Latvia and now teaches literature at the Valmiera State Gymnasium.
Sirma began writing poetry at a young age, and had her first poems published in various literary and youth magazines between 1977 and 1981. After taking a break from writing, she returned to publishing her poetry in 1990, and began contributing articles on current issues in culture and education to the Valmiera newspaper ‘Liesma’. In 2012, her debut poetry collection Kailsals (Blackfrosts) appeared to critical acclaim, with Sirma receiving the Annual Latvian Literary Award for best debut. Her second book of poetry, iekšpagalms (The Backyard), came out in 2014. Critic Anda Baklāne has singled out Sirma’s unique and original perspective on the drama of Latvian history for praise. In 2017, her third book of poetry, Dievaines (The Days of the Spirits), was published, earning Sirma a second Annual Latvian Literary Award and the Ojārs Vācietis Award just one year later.

Blaumanis, Rudolfs

Rūdolfs Blaumanis (1862–1908) was a Latvian writer, journalist and playwright. He is considered one of the greatest writers in Latvian history and particularly a master of realism. The building of a flat in Riga that he once lived has been converted to a museum named partially in his honor, the Janis Rozentāls and Rūdolfs Blaumanis Museum.

Rūdolfs Blaumanis was born at Ērgļi, Latvia on December 20, 1862. His father Matīss Blaumanis was a cook in the local manor and his mother Karlīne was a housemaid. Blaumanis started his education in a private school in the Ogre parish. He studied there until 1875. Then he traveled to Riga and started studies in a German merchant school until 1881. After graduation he started to work as a clerk in a trading enterprise. During this period he started to write his first works. His first publication was Wiedergefunden, a story written in German, published in 1882 in the newspaper Zeitung für Stadt und Land.

In 1882 he returned to his native Braki homestead and lived there until 1885. In this period he deepened his Latvian language knowledge. In 1885 he became a secretary in the Koknese manor and studied to become a steward. He spent there two years. In 1886 was published his first work in Latvian language - the poem Nakts (Night). From 1887 until 1889 he again lived in Braki and wrote several novels in Latvian and also in German.

In 1889 he moved to Riga and after two years started to work in editorial office of Zeitung für Stadt und Land where he wrote about Latvian cultural life. In 1890 his first play Zagļi (Thieves) was staged in Riga. In the following years several more of his plays was staged with good success. In 1892 a collection of his novels was translated into Estonian and later several more of his works were published in Estonia. After his father's death in 1894 he again lived in his Braki homestead for four years and tried to become a farmer. Later he briefly worked in the New Current's main newspaper Dienas Lapa where he published satire against romanticism. In 1898 he returned to Riga and together with Aspazija and Jānis Poruks worked in one of the biggest journals Mājas Viesis. 

In 1901 he moved to St. Petersburg, where he worked as journalist and editor for the Latvian newspaper Pēterburgas avīzes. He led a satirical section of the newspaper. In 1904 due to the financial and health problems he returned to Latvia and until 1906 lived in Braki. In this period he wrote some of his most famous plays. He was not directly involved in the Revolution of 1905, but supported writers who were. In 1906 he again moved to Riga and started to work in the newspaper Latvija where he led the satirical section. In this period he shared a flat in Riga with his close friend painter Janis Rozentāls. In 1908 his health started to decline. Due to the financial problems he was not able to undergo treatment. However several fellow Latvian writers started a fundraising campaign and in late summer with the help of the painter J. Rozentals' Finnish wife Blaumanis was able to go to Finland. However that was too late and he died on 4 September 1908 in the Punkaharju sanatorium for tubercular patients in Finland. He was buried in his native Ērgļi village. His homestead in Braki has been turned into a museum and memorial. 

Skujenieks, Knuts

Skujenieks, born in 1936, died in July 2022. He was a poet and translator who personally and painfully experienced what it meant to be a poet in Soviet Latvia: in 1962, he was accused of "anti-Soviet activism" (the accusation was fabricated, and the courtroom proceedings were used to frighten the uncompromising Latvian poet) and sentenced to 7 years in a prison camp in Russia. Skujenieks wrote many poems in prison, but because of his "non grata" status, his first book of poetry, "Lyrics and Voices", was only published in 1978.
In the prison camp Knuts Skujenieks learned several languages from his fellow prisoners. As a result, he has translated into Latvian folk songs of most the European languages, languages as diverse as Swedish, Old Icelandic, Spanish, Russian and Greek. Some of the many poets he has translated are Frederico Garcia Lorca, Yanis Ritsos, Gabriela Mistral, Desanka Maksimovic and Inger Christensen. His translations from Croatian include Miroslav Krleža, Vesna Parun and Zvane Crnja. In addition he has translated 20 dramas from Russian, Spanish, Polish and Slovak languages.
Knuts Skujenieks has published seven volumes of original poetry and has been translated into 30 languages, with books of his poetry in Swedish, Ukrainian and Lithuanian.
In 1998, Knuts Skujenieks, along with Vizma Belševica, received the prestigious Tomas Tranströmer Prize.

Poruks, Jānis

Romanticist and symbolist writer and poet Jānis Poruks was born in Druviena Parish in 1871, studied at the Dresden Royal Conservatory, but after returning to Latvia he studied also chemistry and commerce at Riga Polytechnic Institute. He worked for the newspaper Mājas Viesis and the magazine Mājas Viesa Mēnešraksts, writing reviews of concerts, opera and theatre performances, articles on literature, and published his own poems and short stories. He wrote more than 150 short stories, collections of poetry, and his novel “The Pearl Fisher” remains one of the iconical works of Latvian literature, alongside Poruks’s short stories “Kauja pie Knipskas” and “Kukažiņa”, while his novel “Riga” is the first dedication to the city and gives unique insight into the life during the turn of the 20th century. His first published book – a philosophical work comparing the ideas of Lev Tolstoy and Friedrich Nietzsche – was written in German and published at Verlag von Friedrich Gottheiner in Berlin in 1894 under the title Die Religion der Zukunft: Eine Studie zur Prüfung der Ideen des Grafen Leo Tolstoi und Friedrich Nietzches’s.
The Revolution of 1905 brought about devastating consequences, terror, and fright into people, and also Poruks suffered from fear for himself, his wife and daughter. This growing unease led him to seek cure at psychiatric clinics. He continued writing until his sudden death in a clinic in Tartu in 1911.
Poruks nowadays is regarded as one of the most remarkable and outstanding Latvian writers of all times.

Inga Žolude