“The protagonists of Santa Biblia are Tūrs, Levs and Nīma, who is also the narrator. The prototype for Nīma is clearly Mary, and the prototype for Levs is Joseph. They are on a mission to save the world: to find and destroy a microchip plant which produces microcircuits for controlling people and installing a certain kind of personality programme in them. In the course of the novel, the protagonists visit twelve stations, which may represent an analogy with the Catholic Stations of the Cross (albeit there are fourteen of those, each dedicated to a meditation on the passion of Jesus Christ). With the help of a talking, inexhaustible rucksack, the young people fulfil their mission encountering various illustrations to the decadence, animal nature and sins of mankind at a certain time and place. The location where the novel unfolds is abstract and unspecified, it resembles time tunnels and encompasses various regions. References to the Bible and Christianity dominate in the novel and they are intertwined with history: there is a Casper Hauser prototype from the 19th century, the hedonism of the ancient Romans, skyscrapers, and neutralization of the brain among other things.” (Literary critic Kristine Karklina)

Contacts: Pierre Astier, pierre@pierreastier.com
Dace Sparāne-Freimane, dace.sparane-freimane@dgramata.lv

Daniel - the central character of the novel exists in front of constant choices between time and space, reality and imagination and between two women – Nelly and Vu. The opportunities to choose resemble an endless game, but within the game itself – will a choice always exist? A courageous story about the nature of incest. Instead of admiring the detail, it digs deep. The author has attempted to pierce the seemingly flirtatious veil of taboo and present a story cleverly resisting bringing the naive ‘for and against’ of physical love to the front (while marginalised, descriptions of these are as colourful and lively as the text of the whole novel); instead she uncovers the deeper and much more painful reason of loneliness and the monsters it creates – the lack of soulful warmth and a yearning towards warmth of the earth. One could describe it as gravitation, but in fact it is warmth that keeps us attached to the ground. It is exactly the warmth that lets us be, makes us be with one another, and makes us hold one another. So we live – keeping warm.

Contacts: Pierre Astier, pierre@pierreastier.com
Dace Sparāne-Freimane, dace.sparane-freimane@dgramata.lv 

The history of the orphanage of the red children starts in 1534 when Margot, the queen of Navarre, establishes Hôpital des Enfants-Dieu, later known as Hôpital des Enfants-Rouges, because of children’s uniforms in red – the colour of compassion. In 1615, the title of the orphanage was given also to a market, founded by Louis XIII. The scenes from the 16th century orphanage in Paris, featuring French characters open the novel and are continued between the four big parts of the novel, each focusing on one of the three main characters carrying “a gene” of the red children that is reborn in Latvia in the 21^st century, and a separate myth of the way children come into this world, for example, children are brought by a stork, or found. The last part of the novel intertwines all the three previously separate stories. The three main characters of the novel are Nadja, Mārīte, and Liesma. Nadja is a patient at a drug-addict institution, Mārīte is a nurse at the same institution, but Liesma is Mārīte's neighbour. Mārīte supports Liesma since she raises her son alone and encounters many difficulties. Liesma helps Mārīte to rescue Nadja. In the end they all reconcile with the core line of the life and fate, overcoming the notion of being an orphan in this life.

Contacts: Pierre Astier, pierre@pierreastier.com
Dace Sparāne-Freimane, dace.sparane-freimane@dienasgramata.lv

Materia Botanica was written as a sequel to the novel Warm Earth, picking up exactly where Warm Earth left off—just after its protagonist Daniel is in an accident. In Materia Botanica, Daniel wakes up in the hospital after the accident
and finds a letter from his ex-girlfriend, Kira, and their son. He decides to return to them. He leaves his family home once again, a decision with which the rest of his family—especially his current partner, Voo, and his sister, Nelly, to whom he is tied with strange and intimate strings—are not happy. Nevertheless, he goes back to Kira and their son, and their reunion renews their bonds. But their new idyllic life is interrupted, first by Kira’s pregnancy with their second child, and then by the arrival of Nelly, who is too dependent on Daniel. The strange intimacy between brother and sister flourishes once more, threatening to ruin his newly rebuilt family life. However, Daniel searches for a way out, often finding refuge in nature as he immerses himself in botany, but at times his immersion is too deep, as Daniel starts to think of himself as truly one with nature. He embodies the metaphor of a family tree, with its roots, branches, fruit, and seeds. Captivating are the unusual plants and their manifestation in the novel, both within Žolude’s language and in the mind of Daniel.

Materia Botanica manages to resolve the conflicts in Daniel’s family, who were the main focus in Warm Earth, and turns the spotlight on Daniel’s life in a continuation of his personal and intimate path of existential pursuit. But the narrative does give voice to the other characters, as they reflect on events in their diary entries, giving readers a close and intimate view into each of their minds.

Contacts: Pierre Astier, pierre@pierreastier.com
Dace Sparāne-Freimane, dace.sparane-freimane@dienasgramata.lv

“The Vendene Lotus Flower” is a novel about the Latvian writer and poet Jānis Poruks (1871–1911). Once upon a time, there were novels that made you forget the existence of time and space, novels where every detail could almost be touched, smelled and tasted, every character was a rich multicolour universe gradually and slowly unfolding in harmony with his or her surroundings. The spirit of the 19th-century epic novel is long since left in the past, but Inga Žolude’s “The Vendene Lotus Flower”, dedicated to the romanticist poet and prose writer belonging to that era, Jānis Poruks, somehow manages to bring it back. Getting to know the life of the Druviena's peasant son in the dazzling Elbflorenz, Dresden, following his years of apprenticeship and mentorship, Sturm und Drang, peace and creativity, all while being mindful of where strange eyes are not welcome, the reader is allowed closer to Poruks than ever before. Žolude as if becomes Poruks, shunning the opportunity to entertain self-expression and giving herself over to the different time, different eyes, voice and writing hand. Of course, we don’t and never will know if Poruks would recognise himself and his time in this novel, but for us, the 21st-century readers, Inga Žolude has created a rather likely image of a world that existed in his time. She does it without the ironic suggestion that it is impossible to depict the past today and everything is but an interpretation or a game. And she does it without resorting to clichés – the writer is neither a pale weak boy from a family of poor folk pure in heart nor a possessed madman; he, the Vendene lotus flower, is multidimensional and human, humbly approached by Inga Žolude. (Zanda Gūtmane)