GR MATU DRAUGS

Collection of 100 Published Works by the Latvian-American Publisher Gr matu Draugs

Brooklyn: Gr matu Draugs, 1952-1983. 100 octavo volumes (approx. 20.5-24cm.); all in publisher's cloth, 28 volumes retaining pictorial dust jackets; a few with minor dampstaining, minor edge wear to a couple of dust jackets, else Very Good to Fine.

With the Soviet reoccupation of Latvia at the end of the Second World War, 10% of the population fled to West, to Europe, the Americas, and Australia; in comparison, 60-70% of all writers fled, while those that remained were subject to acute Soviet censorship and ideological guidelines, with only approved party members allowed into print. The subsequent publication patterns show that between 1945 and 1966, only five novels were published in Latvia every year, while the exiled literary community published between 9 and 16. "Paradoxically then, the centre of gravity of Latvian literature, for at least the twenty years following the Second World War, shifted out of Latvia and into exile" (Juris Roz tis, Displaced Literature: Images of Time and Space in Latvian Novels Depicting the First Years of the Latvian Postwar Exile, p. 18). The present collection is comprised of novels published by a division of the bipartisan Latvian-American newspaper Laiks. The majority of these were written by Latvian and Estonian intellectuals forced into exile in 1944 after the Soviet reoccupation of Latvia, most notably among these Anšlavs Egl tis, a reporter and novelist who covered Hollywood for Laiks and whose novels, often serialized in said publication, are featured prominently in this collection. Perhaps the most important of these in the present collection is Antinš Amerik Mekl L gavu ("Antins Searches for a Bride in America"): "[Zeltinš] places a clearly invented character, with traits from the folktale character of a kind-hearted innocent, in a very real New York milieu, where the other characters are both fictional and real persons from New York Latvian society" (Roz tis, p. 241).

Additional authors who wrote of their exiles present in this collection include Alfreds Dzilums (8 titles); Irma Grebzde (7); J nis Kl dz js (5); Zenta Maurina (5); and Arturs Voitkus (10). Also includes a few children's books and translations of works by Pearl Buck, Astrid Lindgren, W. Somsert Maugham, Erich Maria Remarque, and Stefan Zweig.

Price: $1,200.00

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