Nora Ikstena - Anyatej

Nora Ikstena's highly successful, award-winning novel about motherhood, birth, love and death through three generations of female members of a family.

"In my imagination, I don't see my mother as a medical student in Soviet Latvia who accidentally picked up a child she didn't want, who walks around gray autumn Riga in a skin-tight coat sent from London by her uncle, whom she will never see, the coat held together by a single button gathered over his big belly, and his boots are very worn, and he carries endocrinology notes under his arm."
/Translated by Aranka Laczházi/

About the author
Nora Ikstena was born in 1969 in Riga. One of the most popular and influential prose writers in Latvian contemporary literature, he is known for his meticulous style and detailed language. In 1992, he graduated from the University of Latvia in philology, and then studied Anglo-Saxon literature at Columbia University. Common themes in his works are life, love, death and faith. His works have been awarded many prizes over the years; among them, Mother's Milk received one of the prestigious recognitions of Latvian literature, the Dzintars Sodums prize. In addition to his novels, he regularly writes biographical works, screenplays and essays, and also actively participates in the political and cultural life of his country. Anyatej is the first novel published in Hungarian, the latest volume of the Living Bridges world literature series.