Нора Икстена - Soviet Milk

‘This can’t be true! Quick, quick – come here!’

Scared, we ran to him. On the television thousands of people were shown climbing onto the Berlin Wall and tearing it down bit by bit. There, on the screen, reigned an uncontrolled joy, euphoria, the sound of yelling and streaming tears.

‘This can’t be! It can’t be!’ As if transfixed by the

screen, my step-grandfather repeated it over and over. And yet it happened right in front of our eyes. Our four pairs of eyes – mine, my grandmother’s, my stepgrandfather’s and Jesse’s. Only my mother’s were missing.

Jesse clutched her head and said, ‘We really will be free. Why couldn’t she listen to my words?’

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AUTHOR

Nora Ikstena was born in 1969 in Riga, Latvia. She studied at the University of Latvia before moving to New York. On her return to the Baltics she helped establish the Latvian Literature Center. She published her first novel Celebration of Life in 1998 and has written over twenty books since. She has won numerous awards such as the Order of the Three Stars for services to literature and the Baltic Assembly Prize. Soviet Milk, her most recent novel, won the 2015 Annual Latvian Literature Award (LALIGABA) for Best Prose along with the Dzintars Sodums Prize.

TRANSLATOR

Margita Gailitis has translated some of Latvia’s finest poetry and prose into English, including Sandra Kalniete’s With Dance Shoes in Siberian Snows and Māra Zālīte’s Five Fingers. Soviet Milk is her first translation for Peirene Press.

First published in Great at Britain in 2018 by

Peirene Press Ltd

17 Cheverton Road

London N19 3BB

www.peirenepress.com

This ebook edition first published in 2018.

First published under the original Latvian language title Mātes Piens by Dienas

Grāmata, Riga

Copyright © Nora Ikstena, 2015

This translation © Margita Gailitis, 2018

Original translation edit: Vija Kostoff

With special thanks to Sophie Lewis, who edited Soviet Milk for Peirene.

Nora Ikstena asserts her moral right to be identified as the author of this work in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.

All rights reserved. No part of this ebook may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

This ebook is sold subject to the condition that it shall not be resold, lent, hired out or otherwise circulated without the express prior consent of the publisher.

ISBN 978–1–908670–42–7

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, businesses, organizations, places and events are either the product of the author’s imagination or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or locales is entirely coincidental.

Designed by Sacha Davison

Lunt Photographic Images: elenasz / 123RF Stock Photo (pattern)

Magdalena Roeseler / Flickr CC 4.0 (main image)

Typeset by Tetragon, London

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