Inga Ābele

Biography

Inga Ābele (née Ingrīda Ābele, 1972) is a prose writer, poet and playwright. Inga Ābele is the author of four novels and three collections of short stories. She is one of the most important Latvian writers of her generation due to her unique style, which embraces the richness of language and human psychology, as well as variety of contexts – different historical times and current issues. Her prose builds powerful imagery and atmosphere. Her characters are created through deep psychological research into their souls. Inga Ābele can precisely make them resonate with the setting, be it a typical Latvian household, Latvian rural scenery or a factual historical era in the past. Inga Ābele’s short story Ants and Bumblebees was included in the prose anthology Best European Fiction 2010 published by Dalkey Archive Press, the USA. Inga Ābele's novel High Tide has been published in Swedish by Ariel in 2009 and in 2013 in English by Open Letter, the USA. Her novel Fire Will Not Wake You was published in Lithuanian and Danish in 2007, and in Swedish in 2008. Collection of Inga Ābele's short stories Still Life with Pomegranate was published in French by L’Archange Minotaure in 2005. Inga Ābele's collection of poetry The Horses of Atgazene Station has been published in English.

Her play Dark Deer was simultaneously staged in 2001 by two Latvian theatres – the New Riga Theatre and Valmiera Drama Theatre, then at the Stuttgart State Theatre in 2002, the Bonner Biennale, and in Greece in 2008. In 2006 this play was turned into a film. The play Iron Weed/ Dzelzszāle was staged in Latvia, Denmark, and Finland. The play Jasmine was staged in Latvia and in Lucerne. The play School was staged at the National Theatre of Latvia in 2008. And the play Island in 2009 at the New Riga Theatre, the play Aspazija. Personally. at the New Riga Theatre in 2015. Inga Ābele is also the author of the libretto for the musical Leo. Last Bohemia (2010) staged at the National Theatre of Latvia. Inga Ābele is a member of Latvian Writers Union.

Bibliography

Prose
Balta kleita [White Dress]. Riga: Dienas Grāmata, 2020.
Duna [Thunder]. Riga: Dienas Grāmata, 2017.
Klūgu mūks [Wicker Monk]. Riga: Dienas Grāmata, 2014.
Audiogrāmata Akas māja [The Well House]. Audio-book. Riga: Apostrofs, 2012.
Kamenes un skudras [Ants and Bumblebees]. Riga: Dienas Grāmata, 2010.
Paisums [High Tide]. Riga: Dienas Grāmata, 2008.
Sniega laika piezīmes [Observations in the Time of Snow]. Riga: Atēna, 2004.
Uguns nemodina [Fire Will Not Wake You]. Riga: Atēna, 2001.
Akas māja [The Well House]. Riga: Atēna, 1999.

Poetry
Atgāzenes stacijas zirgi [The Horses of Atgazene Station]. Riga: Atēna, 2006.
Nakts pragmatiķe [Night Pragmatist]. Riga: Atēna, 2000.

Diaries and travel notes
Austrumos no saules un ziemeļos no zemes [To the East of the Sun, to the North of the Earth]. Riga: Atēna, 2006.

Plays published
Lugas [Plays]. Riga: Atēna, 2003.

Plays staged
Aspazija. Personīgi [Aspazija. Personally] staged at the New Riga Theatre (2015).
Sala [Island] staged at the New Riga Theatre (2009).
Skola [School] staged at the National Theatre of Latvia (2008).
Jasmīns [Jasmine] staged in Latvia by United Intimacy (2003), and by radio theatre (2002); and in Lucerne.
Dzelzszāle [Iron Weed] staged at the National Theatre of Latvia (2003); staged in Denmark, and Finland.
Tumšie brieži [Dark Deer] staged at the New Riga Theatre (2001) and Valmiera Drama Theatre (2001); at the Stuttgart State Theatre (2002), the Bonner Biennale; in Greece (2008).

Books to fall for

High Tide

High Tide (Paisums)

The novel High Tide addresses the question of why we are so dependent on the past, even when it has turned us into someone else. In the beginning, they were two. They have no values, no horizontals or verticals, and have to create their own. They joke that if something bad happens, they’ll help each other end it all. And then something bad does happen. The boy gets sick, and the girl has to kill him. This “killing” turns out to be completely different from what you might see in movies or on stage. Everything turns out to be false, awkward, and horrible. Time goes on. One day, the middle-aged woman realizes she no longer knows whether what happened a long time ago really happened. Who were those two people who once lived together? Who was that girl who killed her boyfriend? Did he even exist if she only remembers him a couple times a year? She has nobody to talk to about it. So she writes, searching for an answer to the question: How many lives do we live in a single lifetime? By writing, she searches for the path to her former self. There is a high tide and a low tide: when you are in one, then you can understand the other. The plot of the novel is both real and imagined. The crime is also a symbol of the suicide we commit after each stage of our lives, in search of an answer to the question: What is it that continues to live?

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

HighTide_by_I.Abele.pdf

Wicker Monk

Wicker Monk (Klūgu mūks)

It is a story about man’s thirst for the heavens, a man who was the ﬁrst Latgalian priest in Latvia and who also was a pilot, about a man’s heart and senses, about sin and forgiveness.

Thunder

Thunder (Duna)

The events of the novel Thunder unfold in 1949 in three different geographical locations – the capital city of Riga, and the Latvian regions of Sēlija and Latgale. If his horse is not spared a single drop of life’s overflowing cup of suffering, then why should someone like him, Andrievs Radvils, be spared? The protagonist’s resigned stream of consciousness drives the trajectory of this novel and will remain with the reader long after the book has been closed.

Contacts: dace.sparane-freimane@dgramata.lv

Thunder_by_I.Abele.pdf