Five Fingers was the winner of the 2013 Annual Latvian Literature Award. It is a fictionalized childhood memoir in which the author describes her family’s return from Siberia to Latvia in the 1950s, and her life in Latvia in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

“In her career, Zālīte has been best known as a poet and playwright... Poetry and drama are also present in Five Fingers; the best writing in the book has a combination of precise, poetic detail and dramatic purpose, carrying us to the end of the novel where the protagonist, Laura, promises to fulfil her grandfather’s dying wish – to give his wedding ring to his son, Reinis, ‘upon his return’ from Siberia, where he disappeared without a trace after being deported. This means that Laura has taken on the task of remembering.

...The ‘five fingers’ are a metaphor for the branches of the apple tree in which Laura sets up her perch, and a metaphor for God’s hand. They are also the fingers of Jewish opera singer Asia, broken during an interrogation by the Cheka. ...The repressive instrument, the ubiquitous Cheka, has been generalized as an absolute evil in the mythological character of the Ogre, at the same time without paying much heed to political correctness – that other enemy of freedom.”
– Egīls Zirnis, journalist

Contacts: Dace Sparāne-Freimane, dace.sparane-freimane@dgramata.lv

Birds of Paradise is the sequel to the novel Five Fingers. Its tightly woven drama and precise poetic details clearly and uncompromisingly describe the 1960s – the only time and place in which ten-year-old Laura can grow, mature, and find the truth. The plot unfolds in the beginning of the 1960s when the main character, Laura, is ten years old and is forced to face all the realities of Soviet life – joining the pioneers, Communist political education, work on collective farm brigades. Laura’s thoughts are occupied not only by her readiness to fight for the Communist party’s ideals, but also by the beautiful vision of Pavlik Morozov and the secrets in the school’s attic. Her luck turns sour when she takes chewing gum to school for the first time, and also when she is forced to be on duty with Grigorijs, called the “Goliath Gorilla” in secret, the son of Communist Party organiser Smirnovs. As Laura begins to grow up, she comes into contact with good and bad, with the baggage she inherited from her parents and grandparents echoing their bitter experiences in Siberia nearly always somewhere in  the background.

“Māra Zālīte magnificently follows up on Five Fingers by perfectly conjuring up Kurzeme from the days when honest words had to be kept to yourself. Enchanting and gentle contact with the world is set in a dreamlike context as it blends with a growing perception of those whose futures had been trampled into the ground.” –Inga Ābele, author

“It’s doubtful whether Ionesco, Beckett, or Orwell could have done a better job showing the absurd drama in which we lived during that time.” – Virdžīnija Lejiņa, film director

Contacts: Dace Sparāne-Freimane, dace.sparane-freimane@dgramata.lv