Occupation Poet, Writer Books Sieviete, Zelts | Nationality Latvian | |
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Born 4 December 1877
Skrīveri parish, Russian Empire
(now Latvia) ( 1877-12-04 ) Died 17 November 1970, Riga, Latvia | ||
Andrejs Upīts (4 December 1877, Skrīveri parish, Russian Empire – 17 November 1970, Riga, Latvian SSR) was a Latvian teacher, poet, short story writer and Communist polemicist.
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Literary activity
Andrejs Upīts, while writing for the newspaper "Mājas viesis" under the pseudonym Andrei Araji in 1892, published his first articles, Parunas, Skrīveros uzrakstītas (Recorded Proverbs of Skrīveri) (No. 15) and Kā mūsu senči agrāk Vidzemē dzīvojuši (How Our Ancestors Once Lived in Vidzeme) (No. 20). Upīts wrote novels, stories, drama, tragedy, comedy, poetry, satire, journalism, and literary criticism. His children's novel, Sūnu ciema zēni (The Boys of Moss Village), is included in the compulsory reading list of schools. He was one of the more multifaceted Latvian writers. Upīts' heroes possess striking character and he used a rich language.
His 1945 novel Zaļā zeme (The Green Land) received the USSR State Prize in 1946. His Sociālistiskā reālisma jautājumi literatūrā (Problems of Socialist Realism in Literature) won the Latvian SSR State Prize in 1957.
His works were banned twice: the first time after Kārlis Ulmanis' coup of 1934, and the second during the years of the Soviet regime, when his performance of his play, Ziedošais tuksnesis (The Blooming Desert) was prohibited at the Dailes Theatre and censors prohibited distribution of his book, Literatūras vēsture (The History of Literature).
Novels
Plays
Poetry
Prose
