Edvīns Raups | Latvia
(b. 1962 in Sigulda) – (real name Edvīns Struka) studied at the Riga Polytechnics Institute and at the English Language and Literature Department of the Faculty of Foreign Languages, University of Latvia. He also worked for the weekly “Kultūras Forums”. He’s a poet and translator from Spanish and Portuguese. He has greatly contributed to introducing into Latvian literature Latin american writers, such as Julio Cortázar, Jorge Luis Borges, Octavio Paz. His poetry collections Vēja nav (No Wind, 1991) and Dzīvo damies (Live-ing, 1995) earned him one of the most original poetry debuts of his time, full of surprising metaphors and based on broad knowledge about various international literary traditions. The year 1997 saw the publication of Raups’ collection “33 mīklaini dzīves gadi un dzejoļi” (33 Mysterious Years and Poems). His fourth poetry collection “uzvāri man kaut ko pārejošu” was published in 2002. Putn’ (Bird’) was published in 2008. After writing on social and political themes, Raups moved towards personal introspection and subjective, often intimate experiences of creation. Raups is considered one of the greatest innovators in Latvian poetry of the 1990s. When describing his poetry, critics often use the term surrealism. Raups is the recipient of several important Latvian literary awards, including Ojars Vacietis Award (2009) and the annual Latvian Literary Award. His poetry has been translated into English, Czech, Finnish, German, Russian and Turkish. 2003 saw the publication of Raups’ poems in Sweden and in 2010 the Canadian publisher Guernica Editions published a volume of his selected poems under the title “Then Touch Me Here”.
