Laura Bērziņa Author's Evening
26.03.2025 18:00 to 26.03.2025 20:00
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On March 26 at 6:00 PM, an author's evening with Laura Bērziņa will take place at the Andrejs Upītis Memorial Museum in Riga, Brīvības Street 38–4, continuing the event series “On the Way to the First Book” that began in 2022.
Lauris Bērziņš is one of the most prominent prose authors of his generation in Latvia. Since the end of 2022, his works have been published in “Punctum,” “Strāva,” “Domuzīme,” “Jaunā Gaita,” and elsewhere, and he has received the “Newspaper Name” annual award in the “Prose of the Year” category. His prose is included in the anthologies “Davai” (Līdzstrāva, 2024) and “24 Stories for Christmas” (Latvian Media, 2024), and the story “Will You Treat” was published in the Estonian literary magazine “Värske Rõhk”. He studied at the Literary Academy with Ieva Melgalve and Dace Vīgante. Currently, alongside his day job, he also works with the association “Līdzstrāva”.
With the support of the VKKF, the publishing house “Dienas Grāmata” will soon release Laura Bērziņa’s debut novel “Accomplice”. The psychologically intense work skillfully combines the aesthetics of absurdity with an accurate depiction of contemporary youth issues.
“The presence of absurdity makes “Accomplice” appealing to a wide audience, and the suspenseful plot gives the novel a thriller-like readability. It's a humorous and cynical story about life's endless crises and coincidences, while artistically addressing the ease with which one can justify breaking ethical principles for some imagined higher goal. In this regard, the closest counterpart to Bērziņa's novel is the work of Sven Kuzmins, yet the combination of psychological realism, absurdity, and crime intrigue makes it unique in Latvian literature,” says Vilis Kasims.
About the event series “On the Way to the First Book”
“For some, the path to the first book lasts several years. For others, decades. For yet others, possibly the majority of their life. All these people, who have different ages, different lives, and literary experiences, share the goal of seeing their poetic or prose texts bound in a book. Perhaps not everyone reaches the goal; some give up halfway, remaining in memory as the young and promising ones who shone for a moment and then faded into literary obscurity. Others hold onto the belief that the journey is more important than the goal—the current will take them where it is meant to,” explains Ilze Puķe, director of the Andrejs Upītis Memorial Museum, about the concept of the event series.
“Who are these people, not all of whom are beginners, who are customarily dubbed as new authors? What is so enticing about the process of adding yet another book to the vast world library? What problems arise from the fact that literature is currently very modestly represented in Latvian media? Perhaps the journey truly is more important than the goal?”
The museum’s event series “On the Way to the First Book” seeks to answer these and many other questions. It is also conceived as support for new or relatively new authors,” Puķe adds.
Entrance fee: 2.00 euros.
More information: Ilze Puķe, director of the Andrejs Upītis Memorial Museum, phone +371 67289767, +371 29254346; email: ilze.puke@mma.gov.lv
A public event organized by the Memorial Museums Association.
Photos and video materials will be published online and used in museum publicity events.
More information: Ilze Puķe, director of the Andrejs Upītis Memorial Museum, phone +371 67289767, +371 29254346; email: ilze.puke@mma.gov.lv
A public event organized by the Memorial Museums Association.
Photos and video materials will be published online and used in museum publicity events.
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Location:
Address: Andreja Upīša memoriālajā muzejā Rīgā, Brīvības ielā 38–4
