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Showing posts from January, 2014

Franz Kafka is Alive and Well in Latvia, and Madris is his Name

As a writer who puts his heart into his writing, I am delighted to be published in Latvia, and grateful to the people who found me and published me, in Latvia, in the Czech Republic (there was a second Czech publisher interested, but could not get my novel), and in countries such as Austria, Italy, Israel, and so on. I am even in correspondence with one of my Latvian readers, who found me on the Net. There are authors who give their books away for nothing, and there are other authors who do not even mind that they are pirated, so long as it means that they are being read, preferably by poor people who cannot afford to buy books. However, I don't think of modern Latvia as a particularly impoverished country, and doubt that my Latvian publishers, who profited from my book (and deserve to), are either that contemptuous of writers and ethics, or so poor that they have holes in their socks and just one pair of shoes.  So I would really appreciate it if they paid me what was fair and