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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.