Trafika Europe 3 - Latvian Sojourn

The Feast of Liars (excerpts)

Jānis Einfelds

Jānis Einfelds was born in 1967, and is known for his unique, experimental prose. His novels include Moon Child, 1995; The Pig Book, 1996; and The Old Geezers, 1999. A trilogy of novels in one book, described as being like Orwell’s 1984 about the future of Latvia, is due out in 2015. When Einfelds was in the Soviet Army, someone tried to kill him, “for no reason – someone just clubbed him. Part of his brain had to be removed; he gets dreadful headaches,” his translator has told World Literature Today. The deeply subverted experience of sudden, senseless brutality surfaces in his work, in what his publisher calls these “magical and terrible tales”, where child-like wonder can be disturbed by a random, radioactive cruelty, from nature or family or society. Yet whimsy often triumphs in these delightful tales.

Translated from the Latvian by Inara Cedrins.

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