The Nordic Literary Salon will visit Latvia in January. We will talk to translator from Latvian and Lithuanian Anna Sedláčková about the most translated novel at the moment, Soviet Milk, by the leading Baltic author Nora Ikstena. The mother-daughter narrative explores the fate of the Latvian nation under Stalinist rule and the value of individual freedom.
You can watch the live stream on Thursday 11 January 2024 at 8 pm on the Scandinavian House Facebook page. A recording will be made available on our YouTube channel at a later date.
In Czech.
Nora Ikstena (born 1969) is the world’s best-known Latvian writer and an active participant in Latvian literary life at home and abroad. She has written a number of novels, short stories, essays and has won several major awards. She inserts magical formulas and mythical allusions into her works, and views Latvian history through the eyes of women of several generations. Her style, which is sometimes compared to magical realism, draws on late 20th century modernism.
Anna Sedláčková (born 1998) translates mainly from Latvian and Lithuanian. She graduated in Baltic Studies and Sinology at Charles University in Prague and is currently studying and living in Finland. In addition to her new translation of the novel Soviet Milk, she also works on translating and popularising texts by authors from both the Baltic States and the region of South-Eastern Europe. In 2022, she curated the literary exhibition Czech-Baltic Century exhibited at the National Library of the Czech Republic. She is currently working with her colleagues on an anthology of texts from contemporary Latvian literature.
The event is part of the Scandinavian House’s year-long project Nordic Literature in the Heart of Europe 2024, which is supported by the City of Prague and the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic.
