Day Planner


international success 13.00


Foyer Hall 5.1 and 6.1


Fellow Latvian authors Jānis Joņevs and Andris Kalnozols will be discussing their two début novels, which are both set in small, “seemingly obscure” cities—Jelgava and Talsi, respectively.


Call Me Calendar by Kalnozols—who is


well-known in Latvia for his work in the theatre—centres on a man who, in mental and existential crisis, believes he must memorise the dates of all the saint’s-name days in the calendar. The 2020 Orbīta- published novel was one of Latvia’s biggest books in recent years,


staying on the Latvian bestseller charts for 18 months.


Organisers say the


two authors will aim to unpack what the settings added to their novels, asking, “How does the environment influence literature, and how does


literature influence the environment?”


From small town to


Latvian publishers don’t really translate Russian writers because so many people can read it. We have wonderful Russian bookshops in Riga. There are Russian series on TV that are still popular. We are… intertwined.” When the Ukraine invasion began, like many, Joņevs despaired. Unlike many, he did practical things about it and has since volunteered a couple of days a week for a refugee charit helping Ukrainians fleeing the war. He adds that he quickly discovered his writer’s skill-set was not particularly useful: “I wanted to do something. I felt I had to do something. But the organisation needed people good in logistics, in IT. Even drivers, but I can’t drive. So I am literally the guy who carries boxes around, moves sacks of grain, loads trucks. My knowledge of French grammar and Greek mythology is not really helpful in a humanitarian crisis.” Joņevs will be at today’s (19th


October) Frankfurt Book Fair in part to talk about Jelgava ’94; he is in a session with fellow Latvian author Andris Kalnozols, discussing books set in small communities. The titular Jelgava is Joņevs’ home town, a cit of 50,000 people some 40km south-west of Riga. The organisers may be stretching the definition of “small”: Jelgava is Latvia’s fourth-largest cit by population. Joņevs was born there in 1980 and grew up as, yes, a metal-loving teen, before moving to the capital for universit. He worked in advertising for a time before the success of his début enabled him to be a full-time writer—“more or less”, he adds, as like most Latvian authors his is a portfolio career that spans genres and disciplines, encompassing copywriting, teaching, cultural journalism and freelance gigs. He also works as a translator of French-language texts.


There are stories of how Latvians suffered in exile, how the Latvian community in Russia was completely destroyed... A lot of my generation tried to look in other directions


ANDRIS KALNOZOLS WILL APPEAR ON A PANEL WITH JONEVS AT THE FAIR TODAY


.


Finnish Jelgava ’94 translations were published in the past 12 months—bolstered by Latvian Literature’s grant programmes, but also aided by the 2019 Latvian film adaptation which is now available on Netflix in 30 territories. His crime novel, Decembris, is starting to get traction internationally, too. It was a book he was itching to write: “All of my life as a reader, I have been interested in crime literature. I wanted to explore not just the crimes, but the reaction—the media frenzy, how societ reacted. And the real-life murders happened in the 1990s—maybe I’m stuck in the 1990s—so I talked to people who were there about it and I wanted to explore how we alter and change our memories. Not necessarily lying, but just exploring how we process the past.”


Rocking out Many international publishers have eschewed what they must view as a somewhat obscure cit of the original title for something more on-the-nose (the “doom” of the English version refers to the doom metal sub-genre the main character is drawn to). “I like how the French version is just called Metal,” Joņevs smiles slightly and ironically half-raises his hands to do the index and pinkie finger “rawk” sign. Joņevs in conversation is smart, deadpan and amusing but restrained; he could very well be the template for Latvian Literature’s long- running #IamIntrovert campaign, familiar to most international book fair-goers over the past few years.


He is still talking about a book he originally published 10 years ago because


it continues to be brand new in many countries, as the foreign editions keep rolling in—the German and


TheBookseller.com


Rocking on We return to Latvia’s neighbour, and one thing that chafes for Joņevs is that the spectre of Russia is inescapable artistically, at least in how outsiders pigeonhole Latvian— and other former Eastern Bloc—writers. He explains: “One big genre for some Latvian writers is a painful side of history and how that relates to Russia. Stories of how Latvia suffered under Russia, of how Latvians suffered in exile, how the Latvian communit in Russia was completely destroyed. But a lot of [my generation] tried to look in other directions. We are not necessarily defined by what happened aſter the Berlin Wall came down. I wrote a book about a kid who discovers heavy metal, so his important date was 5th April 1994 [the day Nirvana frontman Kurt Cobain died], not 1989 or any of these political ones.”


He pauses, then continues: “I was at this literature festival in Berlin last year, on a panel with an Armenian writer. I was talking about my metal book; he talked about his book, which was a set of surreal stories. But the title of the session was ‘The Post-Soviet Cit’... both of our books really had nothing to do with that. Sometimes being ‘post-Soviet’, ‘post-Russian’, is the only reason we are interesting to a western audience. I would like to change that.”


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© Kristīne Niedrāja


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