Authors

Discussion

One of the ongoing tendencies of contemporary Latvian prose is the re-evaluation of Latvian history, society and culture through multi-author historical novel series. Among the many contributing authors, writer and poet Inga Gaile stands out for her critical portrayal of the interwar period and the roles that women were allocated at that time. In the two examined novels, “Shards” (Stikli, 2016) and “Writer” (Rakstītāja, 2020), Gaile confronts the popular nostalgia for 1920s and 30s Latvia – a state which was characterised by intense nationalism and strict gender roles.

The novel “Shards” tells the story of Magdalēna, a mental asylum inmate who suffers from anxiety and is thus deemed “unworthy” by the then-popular eugenic principles for creating the perfect Latvian nation. Pregnant by one of the doctors, Magdalēna escapes the asylum to give birth and meets other women who are also confined by the expectations and policies of their nation and society.

“Writer” describes the life of the Latvian writer Ivande Kaija, whose novel “Original Sin” (Iedzimtais grēks, 1913) caused a moral uproar for revealing the unfair position of women in marriage. In this novel, Gaile examines the questions of agency, age, and creativity, often through the prism of national belonging.

In both works, Latvian women can be viewed as a deviant auto-image – the self-representation containing various facets of Otherness, which are notably less present in the male characters of the novels. This presentation explores the construction of this Otherness by combining imagology, the study of national characters in literature, with intersectionality to highlight how sexuality, age, social status and disability participate in the interplay between gender and nationality in literature.