The Room

Publicity information

Laima Kota's novel "The Room" allows the reader to take a look into the life of Latvian people three decades ago when the Soviet power, hampered by increasing economic struggles, suddenly turned its course recognising the human passion for a more prosperous life, and announced Perestroika. The author extracts this era out of people's memories using all of her favourite genres – burlesque and absurd thriller, farce and heightened realism. She believes that after everything Latvians have been through while building the Soviet regime, they are prepared to face the difficulties of the 21st century. Writer Gundega Repše elaborates: "In the cosmos of everyday communal lives during Perestroika, the characters and lives of people swirl away in a naughty and thus frightening orgy of existential modesty. Has anybody here even had "a room of one's own" (greetings to Virginia Woolf, of course)? Maybe people constructed such sovereign rooms in their dreams at least. The forced Friendship of Nations upon along with the eddies of the kaleidoscopic collectivity create the farcical framework for each individual’s unique life."
Source: latvianliterature.lv