In The Shadow Of Death

RUDOLFS KARLIS LEONIDS BLAUMANIS (1863-1908) one of Latvia's greatest writers, is noted especially for his numerous short stories and plays, and for his command of literary realism. He began writing in his twenties. Energised by the social issues of the day, he honed a deep sympathy for the lives of ordinary Latvians. A newspaper editor as well as a celebrated author, he helped raise the standards of written Latvian and inspired a new generation of Latvian writers. Uldis Balodis (b. 1978) was born in Sweden but grew up in Arizona, a descendant of the World War Two Latvian refugee community in the United States, and is a native speaker of Latvian and English. He has studied over thirty languages, including Navajo, Sanskrit and S mi, and holds a PhD in Linguistics with a special interest in endangered and less-spoken languages. His forthcoming translations include Zigmunds Skujins's novel Nakedness and Trillium, the rst-ever anthology of poetry in English and Livonian, for which he was a contributing translator.