Berlin is a collection of 21 prose pieces and one short novella. Although the stories are not intentionally linked, they follow a vague narrative that seems
to promise a resolution in the novella at the end of the book, the titular Berlin. Or, each story is yet another attempt to penetrate, from a different place and time, the city where the protagonist finds himself, stranded seemingly without a purpose. Berlin is a place where you really want to be, but find it almost impossibly difficult to get to, and when you finally do find yourself there, you learn that to escape
this place is even harder than it was to arrive, no matter how much you wish to leave it. Something has happened—we’re not sure what, and neither do any of the protagonists. Critics have called Kupriss’s prose manipulative, mathematical, even porous.

“Andris Kupriš’s prose contains delicate, deliberate errors. These give an uncertain tension and absurd atmosphere to apparently autobiographical, everyday situations. Even the way language is used in Kupriš’s texts embodies this shift.
It expresses estrangement, for example, or an atypical perception of time. Berlin confirms that a melancholy, ironic perspective has a place even in the newest Latvian literature.” – Laura Brokāne, editor of the novel, writer.

Contact: Publishing house Orbita, orbita@orbita.lv