The country is in my heart and no one will take it away from me, but what is currently happening in our politics is simply impossible to take seriously, admits writer Nora Ikstena. About happiness and inner freedom, new books, baking cakes and singing in the choir, also about family history and how to get out of the darkest point of life – a conversation with Nora Iksten At the crossroads of an era.
“Literature is not an opera, Latvian writers nowadays have to take care of popularizing their works in the world by themselves,” says Nora Ikstena in an interview with Egil Zirn in the newspaper “Diena” in 1995, who is introduced to the readers as a young Latvian storyteller. And Egils Zirnis continues: “Literary critics have noticed her first book of short stories “Nieki und izpriecas”, and not least because Nora works in our only literary magazine “Karogs”. how necessary is the popularization of Latvian literature in the world.”
“In terms of prose, we are not behind at all. However, we have done catastrophically little to make the works of our writers available in major languages,” Nora Ikstena said in 1995, and in the following years, she has done a lot to get our literature onto the world’s bookshelves. Her work “Mother’s milk” has been appreciated by readers in Latvia and will soon be translated into almost 30 languages. Along with literature, Nora has always had her own evaluative view of Latvia’s political and social developments and she has not shied away from expressing her position publicly.
In 2006, Nora Iksten reads “The Christmas Tale”. I think only you can write a story like that about how the angels meet our Milda, the symbol of our freedom, and say that if they have such a strong Star Holder, sooner or later these people will reach enlightenment. I think that if you had to write something similar in these times, there wouldn’t be much to change?
Nora Iksten: I will say Arni, I like this girl reading this fairy tale. Bingo! I would rather not write today, but the basis is that we are patient and resilient, and I think the symbolism of Milda, a woman who always holds three stars in her raised hands and does not lower her hands, is strongly characteristic of Latvia. Among other things, my maternal great-grandmother is also called Milda. The strong line of Milda must be continued, and hands must not be lowered.
In 2006, it’s figurative, but when you write about Latvia, you say that they cheat their country like their neighbor, love like their own child, raise each other to the sky, try to tear them down. Your view of Latvia today, our society, our politics?
Nora Iksten: I will say Arni that after, let’s say, the swamps of the swamps that have cleared and the mountains of the mountains that have been overcome and not overcome, I have realized one thing that the country is in my heart and no one will take it away from me. And of course,
what is happening in our politics right now is simply impossible to take seriously. Because in the history of Latvian politics, I think we have never seen such large-scale acts of handing over cooperation, half-saying, keeping one’s word and pacts.
But in a way, at this point, for those of us who are doing other work, who are not involved in politics, we have no choice but to put that sandbox away a little bit, keep doing what we’re doing, and train ourselves.
As Vaira Vīke-Freiberga said: Every one of us, each of us, think, think, think, because the direction we will go will depend on your choice and on your thought, and on your foresight, let’s say, in the next political elections.
Many have told me that our Latvian political voters are uneducated. But I have the following comment: when a large number of people voted for these forces, which are still in power in Latvia, no one could foresee either covid or the war in Ukraine, which has quite distorted human understanding, political understanding, foresight, empathy, love. And
that fish unfortunately rots from the head. And it is in our power that we can stop this process for a moment by continuing, simply continuing strongly to do what we are doing – to preserve our language, our culture, our creativity, which has been strongly demonstrated this summer. We have that core, and it simply cannot be that this head will not change as well. We have to keep that body and its head will change too.
How is Nora today?
Nora Iksten: Things are going well, Nora is full of energy and new works have almost been created and are being created, and, let’s say, my rebirth begins again with the same thing you already mentioned, with entering the world. This week in a couple of days I will be giving a lecture at the Česlav Miloš readings in Lithuania, it’s such a big event. After that, I will go to Amsterdam, where “Mother’s milk” feeds another language – Dutch. And then with the film, together with Inara Kolman, we will go on a small tour of the world and, most importantly, at the end of November, I will be the author of the European Union at the Mexican book fair in Guadalajara with two books in Spanish – “Mother’s milk” and “Glitter of water”.
Nora, one of the guiding principles of your life is Poruk’s words – “The human eye looks forever on a high mountain, man himself sinks forever deep down”. You have experienced both high mountains and these deep valleys. I understand, this is the moment when Nora Ixten is going up the hill with a determined look.
Nora Iksten: See, it’s true, I think that if a person reaches the zero point, then according to the laws of physics, if God and Providence have helped him and people to stay at that zero point, then only upward movement is possible. I don’t take it as some kind of feeling that I should reach even greater heights now, I’m just grateful for every day and I’m probably writing with joy for the first time in my life and after a long time I’m really living with joy. I feel like it’s a huge gift that I just can’t help but appreciate.
If there are people listening to us right now, whose life may have turned around so much that they are close to this zero point or it is difficult for them to overcome it, from your experience, how ready are you to give some advice or suggestion, or simply an observation on how not to end up to this point and how to get there faster?
Nora Iksten: Love yourself! Think of yourself, and this is not meant to mean that you should be selfish and think only of yourself. But,
if you only think about how to live outward and not how to live inward in this whirlwind we’re all caught up in, sooner or later that zero point will approach, and I must have reached critical mass. But I have to say, since I was given thousands of helping hands from my loved ones, readers in Latvia and all over the world, I received a real sea of love that I once wrote in the lyrics of the song. So I can say that I consider it my mission in life to spread that sea of love to others as much as God has given me the time in this world.
In reality, it is that, and I think this was also said by a rather famous person, that the times when you have fallen do not count, the times when you have stood up count.
(..)
I have been in your kitchen both when you lived in Georgia and in Ikškile. You don’t just peel potatoes, you’re just an excellent cook.
Nora Iksten: Yes, I don’t have it, I’ve gone along with it step by step, and I don’t distinguish that I should have made some choices in my life to be a writer, or to bake cakes, or to be a good wife to my man, or a good wife to her husband. I haven’t looked at these things like that at all, because I think that life is a whole and for me writing is … yes, yes, you can say that this is what I do best in this life, because I really understood it to the bone now, coming back to life again, because I thought, well, enough writing, and now I’m going to start something I’ve never done in my life – bake cakes. I even baked a raspberry tart…
Maybe about Pavlova?
Nora Iksten: No pavlova, but crème brûlée, cupcakes, apple bread, chocolate tarts, and then my friend Gunilla Forsena came from Sweden and said – she said it in English, I’ll translate it into Latvian – it’s already wonderful that you’ve proven to us that you can bake all kinds of things kind of cakes, but back to writing anyway.
Return to writing, because, referring to the plot you just heard, with those “paper marriages” you have, as it was, and there have been different ones, and described in the yellow press and in women’s magazines, of course, but there is one marriage that you really have for life , and these are marriages with language, marriages with the Latvian language.
Nora Iksten: Yes, and you know, Arni, I’m at that point in my life – as the yellow press has said everything about me, they simply have nothing more to say. The whole of Latvia knows that I am crazy, which means that I can be free. Hooray! I am so happy and beyond that is my, as you say, marriage with language, my married life, with the joy of life, with cooking, with friends, with the people around me.
I’ve reached a certain level of freedom, but not permissiveness, and in that sense I’m not scared and I’m not afraid, and it’s like saying that every person has a skeleton in the closet, and when you come out of that closet into the field, you feel free inside, and maybe this is the moment that happened to me.
Then I have almost finished a new novel in the good sense of a child’s mind, I think it will be interesting to people.
What little insight can you give?
Nora Iksten: Yes, I think it’s a very relevant theme because the novel has a courier, a modern courier named Jōna, and he has an interesting relationship with the largest animal or marine animal in the world, the great blue whale. And of course, purely biblically, he will get into the whale’s belly, come out, and help the whale as well. And
I think there is a lot in there about where we are as a world at this moment, how much we have worn out nature and that we should think about all this. But the main thing is that all this is written with joy and the end will be happy.
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2023-10-08 02:39:45
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