The literature festival Prose Readings is traditionally held at the end of the year in Latvia. On December 1, they were symbolically inaugurated by the finalists of the contest “How to Live On?”, Latvian Television reports.
123 entries were submitted to the Prose Readings short story competition. They were all united by an existential theme – “How to Live On?”.
Ilmārs Šlāpins, writer and Prose Readings 2024 jury member, says: “If you look at all the entries, there are some patterns. There are some themes that are touched upon more often. Many authors, especially women authors, interpret the subject through the illnesses of their loved ones, death, childbirth, abortion – in a physiological or physical sense. Several works dealt with historical themes. Not only historical in the immediate past of Latvian history, but also epic history, prehistory, finding there some turning points or the beginning of a new life at some point, even cosmic themes were there a little bit. The male authors could be said to have touched on the theme of relationships – not the illnesses and deaths of relatives, but precisely broken relationships and arguments (…), looking at it as a turning point in life, after which one has to think how to live on.”
Writer and Prose Readings 2024 short story competition participant Džena Andersone believes that people should write if they have something to say and if they themselves feel it is worthwhile: “It is a necessity of my life, it is my other world, one could even say my core world, where I live a different life from what we call everyday life.”
Meanwhile, Lolita Tomsone, a columnist and participant in the Prose Readings 2024 short story competition, notes: “We live in Latvia, and we have such an opportunity to write in Latvian. I think it’s a kind of gift to try to say things and clarify words, polish up our sentences.”
“We have a lot of different places that determine how you should think. Prose gives you the opportunity to be free in your thoughts and not to absorb other people’s opinions and not to be like a ram on a leash. It develops the brain,” said Arno Jundze, head of the Latvian Writers’ Society.
Various “Prose Readings” events will take place throughout the week in Rīga and elsewhere in Latvia.
