Books for parents
Dolphin de Vigan. Loyalty. Riga: Jānis Rozes apgāds, 2020.
Thirteen-year-old Theo and his friend Matis have a secret. Both teachers, Elena, suspect that something is wrong, but that the effort to discover the truth at all costs awakens the ghosts of the past itself. Matisse's mother, Cecilia, accidentally discovers something on her husband's computer that makes her doubt that she has ever fully met her spouse ... how dangerous loyalty can be.
Dolphin de Wigan (1966) is a French writer whose psychological novels have aroused great interest and attracted hundreds of thousands of readers both at home and abroad, received prestigious literary awards, translated and turned into films. She has been working in the field of public opinion research for a long time, but now for several years she has fully focused on her career as a writer. In her works, she masterfully merges facts with fiction, addresses shocking aspects of private life, and with the surgeon's precision and mesmerizing storytelling skills draws the reader into a storyline, twisting a whirlpool of thought and emotion. So far, de Vigan has published eight novels and co-authored the play. The small novel Loyalty (2018) can be read in one breath, and the author herself describes it as "a book about silence and what children are prepared to do to protect their parents."
Translated from French by Inta Šmite. Artistic design - Lote Vilma Vītiņa.
Selja Ahava. Things that fall from the sky. Riga: Latvian Media, 2020.
In the four messages of the novel, we hear three different voices, each telling of unexpected and surprising events and how they have changed the people involved and the environment.
Through the heroes of the book, the author delves into the unexpected and inexplicable essence of events, creating a novel in which the mundane intertwines with the absurd, beautiful with the cruel and utterly impossible tales with true but absolutely incomprehensible things that happen as unexpectedly as rain from a clear sky.
Through it all, Ahava seems to wonder how patient and enduring love can be, how severe the pain of loss is, and whether time really heals. A book that makes you think, empathize, underline and write down what you read and after a while take it in your hand to read again.
Translated from Finnish by Maima Grīnberga.
Kristīne Ulberga. Carriage to Santiago. Riga: Book of the Day, 2020.
“2015. In the summer, Kristine Ulberga walked 900 kilometers of Santiago pilgrimage. Without any Christian exaltation and without waving at each roadside stone with a carved cross, but with only a hundred euros in his pocket and his companion, his girlfriend's teenage son Alex. This trip is at the heart of the story, but it is by no means a traditional travel note. Occasionally, the message contains episodes that could be considered visionary and transform this absolutely real move into a metaphorical journey. Kristīne is looking for herself on the way, Alexis is doing it in another way, but it goes without saying that no "I" is found, because it is not possible to do it at all. And yet, the 900-kilometer walk is changing people. How this is happening and what exactly is changing in her could be considered the central motif of the Carriage to Santiago. ” (Guntis Berelis).
The Carriage on Santiago is the sixth prose book by the writer Kristine Ulberga (1979).
Artist Jānis Esītis
Laura Vinogradova. Upe. Riga: Zvaigzne ABC, 2020.
Rute unexpectedly inherits his father's country house by the river. She has never known Father Julius, but she knows all too well the pain of her sharp childhood and the sister who disappeared ten years ago, the feeling of inadequacy and emptiness in her heart.
And Rute is running away - running away from the city, from people, from herself… Will the river help her find herself, her life?
Sisters, I want to tell you about the river. About myself in that river. It makes me tremble, tremble. It makes me laugh. I haven't felt so alive in a long time. The river at the footbridge is quite clean. Deep. I can't reach the bottom of it, then I have to dive in a bit. You can swim across quickly. If you want to swim properly, such a circle comes together. You can feel the current. If it allows, it brings, and I don't know how far it can go. Sisters! It wants to stay in the river.