Zigmunds Skujins
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Review of the English language translation (2019) of the Latvian original Kailums (1970)
Sandris aka Aleksandrs Draiska completes his military service and goes to visit Marika with whom he began a correspondence when she reacted to reading his published poetry . When he arrives, Marika denies having ever corresponded with him and her 3 roommates deny having impersonated her. For privacy, his letters had gone to a different address entirely. Sandris wants to leave town but is convinced to stay. This sets up the story of who is fooling whom and for what reason?
Sandris investigates further with encounters on the town with the roommates and their associates. He also meets with the somewhat mysterious characters Professor Aparjods and Gatiņš (the former seems to have a supernatural ability to turn up in the most unexpected places). Sandris's chats with Mārtiņš, a plain-speaking street kvass* seller seem to be a flag to live a more honest and open life. The truth comes to light but with a tragic result.
I attempted to find some further publishing history of this Skujiņš work but there was little to be found. Only the original Latvian edition from 1970 seems to exist, with no re-prints or any other translations. A 2008 Latvian film Kailums borrows the Latvian title and modernizes the plot (into a now-already-outdated MY SPACE online correspondence) but fails to acknowledge Skujiņš as the original source writer (on IMDB at least).
With my heritage, I am pretty much fated to read anything that emerged from Soviet era writers with a search for commentary about the totalitarian situation that they lived through. "Nakedness" is more general than that though, as it can be read as a metaphor of the lives that we present to the outside world vs. our inner lives which we keep to ourselves. It can therefore still have resonance in the present day and it is great that Scotland's Vagabond Voices Press have revived it along with the extensive list of other Baltic writers they have published under their Changlings translations imprint.
The English translation by Uldis Balodis reads very well. There are a dozen footnotes, several of which are from the original author, explaining various Latvian or Soviet history references. There were a few minor copy-editing errors but nothing on a scale that would have merited one of my ranting errata listings.
*Kvass is a Russian/Baltic drink made from fermented rye bread. In Soviet times it was sold on the streets to customers who would share from a communal cup or bring their own empties to be filled.… (mehr)