Short stories
Smalkās kaites
Not translated into English
Ēriks Ādamsons · 1937
Synopsis
Short stories written between 1931 and 1937, in which divided beings, driven by their impulses and complexes, see their reasonable desires overturned by passing fancies and whims. A soldier doubts to the point of obsession the fidelity of his fiancée, a gardener devotes himself to creating a unique yellow rose, a German officer is seized with desire for a married Latvian woman: each must choose between holding back his urges and giving in to them.
Context
Published in 1937 by Valters un Rapa, the collection marks, for the Latvian cultural canon, the beginning of the modernist era of Latvian prose. Critics have spoken of ornamentalism for its attention to the smallest details, often pushed to the grotesque beneath a light irony, and Viesturs Vecgrāvis held its author to be the only true Latvian decadent. In Abakuka krišana, an elevator shaft becomes the crater of a volcano. Its trace can be read in Anšlavs Eglītis and Zigmunds Skujiņš. In French, a selection of stories appeared in 2003 under the title La Chute d'Habacuc, translated by Nicolas Auzanneau and Inta Geile.
Who it is for
Brief short stories, ironic and ornate. It is worth knowing that they never judge their characters.
Prizes and reception
Placed in the Latvian cultural canon as the beginning of the country's modernist prose.