Leons Briedis
| Leons Briedis | |
|---|---|
| Born |
December 16, 1949 Madona, Latvian SSR |
| Occupation | Writer, Poet, Essayist, Translator, Songwriter, Publisher, Literary Critic |
| Residence | Riga, Latvia |
| Nationality | Latvian |
| Spouse | Maria Briede-Macovei |
| Children | Adrian Briedis-Macovei, Kornelius Briedis |
Leons Briedis (born December 16, 1949 in Madona District, Soviet Union) is a Latvian poet, a novelist, an essayist, a literary critic and publisher, translator of prose and poetry from Latin, Russian, English, Romance languages (Romanian, Spanish, French, Portuguese, Italia, Catalan, Rhaeto-Romanic), Swahili (of Bantu peoples), Albanian a. o. languages. He is also an author of several musicals produced on the radio and staged at the biggest theatres in Latvia, script writer (author of several scripts, one short-length film is produced), has written much for children (poems, prose, plays), author of song texts (in collaboration with the componist Raimonds Pauls texts for appr. 150 songs), has translated 10 plays staged at Latvian theatres and rendered in verse opera librettos (e.g., the opera by B. Britten "The Small Chimney-Sweep").
After graduating the Sigulda Secondary School in 1968 he entered the Latvian State University, Day Department of the Latvian Language and Literature Faculty from which he was expelled in 1970 because of anti-Soviet activity without any right to acquire higher education within the territory of the former Soviet Union. Despite it in 1972 Leons Briedis entered the Day Department of Spanish Language and Literature at the University of Chişinău in the Moldavian Republic which in 1974 he was forced to leave due to his links with Moldavian and Romanian democratically-minded intelligentsia. From 1977 to 1979 he studied at the Higher Literary Courses of Maxim Gorky Literature Institute in Moscow the theory of translation and Africanistics. L. Briedis for a long time has experienced the pressure of the Central Committee of the Latvian Communist Party and the VDK (KGB) of Latvian SSR which was manifest as prohibition to publish his works for a certain period, to travel abroad or to take up an employment of ideological character (namely, in publishing houses, schools, editorial offices etc.).
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