Anslavs Eglitis was the most prolific twentieth-century Latvian novelist and short-story writer in exile. He was also the author of fifteen published plays, three books of poetry, and two volumes of essays; the translator of Edgar Allan Poe's poetry and Alfred de Musset's and O. Henry's short stories into Latvian; and an art, movie, and theater critic. Praised for his opulent language, immaculate form, and exquisite style, Eglitis is considered a chronicler of his time, as his novels and stories deal with the periods and places in which he lived. Besides a lifelong engagement with literature, he studied painting; his art works were exhibited in Latvian art galleries as early as 1935, and many of his books include his ink drawings. He was awarded the Free World Latvian Peoples Prize in 1980.

Eglitis was born on 14 October 1906 in Riga. His father, Viktors Eglitis, was a poet and classical scholar; his...