""Around four in the morning, Detective Davuss awoke from his sleep because he could hear a rhythmic knocking under the window, then everything went quiet, but his dream had already left.""
Riga, Advent 1906. It was almost yesterday that the young people who called themselves Jauna strava (the new direction) - hearing the word of the times - first introduced the word "Latvija" to their dream country and set themselves the not too ambitious goal of autonomy, then in 1905- in , they themselves drifted into the revolutionary wave shaking the Russian Empire. Dreamy souls, identity idealists, who wanted to realize the promises of the Enlightenment: social justice and solidarity. Their advocates were few, but revolutions are never sparked by the masses, but rather by the loudest. And there is no one to assess in advance the price that everyone will have to pay afterwards.
In the confusion after the civil war, in the twilight of failed hopes, it is almost impossible to notice that in the Advent whirlwind of the Esplanade park, an old man with a bent back, looking confused, stretches his arms towards the carousel and lifts three small children from it.
OSVALDS ZEBRIS (1975) became a prose writer, four volumes have been published so far. In 2011, Briviba's short story book tiklos (Freedom in a net) was chosen as the most promising debut in Latvia. His novel Koka nama laudis (People in the wooden house) was nominated for the Latvian Literary Award. The Kidnapping in Riga, which is Mi. Latvia. XX. was published in a series of historical novels entitled század, in 2017 he won the European Union Literature Prize. The novel has been translated into several European languages. The author's latest work is the novel Mara, completed in 2019, in which he deals with the everyday life of young people in today's Riga. Osvalds Zebris is a member of the Latvian Writers' Association. In 2016 and 2018, he led a prose writing master course organized by the Latvian Academy of Literature.

Author: Osvalds Zebris