Eriks Ādamsons was a Latvian writer, poet and novelist.

Biography

Eriks Ādamsons was born in Riga

Riga

Riga is the capital and largest city of Latvia. With 702,891 inhabitants Riga is the largest city of the Baltic states, one of the largest cities in Northern Europe and home to more than one third of Latvia's population. The city is an important seaport and a major industrial, commercial,...

 on June 22, 1907. In 1926 he started law studies in Latvian University. He made his first publication in 1924. In 1930ties. he fully devoted himself to literature. Ādamsons also worked as translator (he knew: Russian

Russian language

Russian is a Slavic language used primarily in Russia, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan. It is an unofficial but widely spoken language in Ukraine, Moldova, Latvia, Turkmenistan and Estonia and, to a lesser extent, the other countries that were once constituent republics...

, German, English and French languages). He married young Latvian writer Mirdza Ķempe

Mirdza Kempe

Mirdza Ķempe was a noted Latvian poet and translator.Mirdza Ķempe was born into a working class family in Liepāja, Latvia. From 1914 to 1926 she lived in Tosmare at Ģen. Baloža st., 47; later she and her family lived at Bernatu st., 41 in Liepāja. In 1915-1919 she studied at the 1st Liepāja...

 in 1931, but their marriage broke apart shortly before second world war.

In the years of German occupation

Reichskommissariat Ostland

Reichskommissariat Ostland, literally "Reich Commissariat Eastland", was the civilian occupation regime established by Nazi Germany in the Baltic states and much of Belarus during World War II. It was also known as Reichskommissariat Baltenland initially...

 he worked in book store and also in the lumbering. His works was banned by German authorities, so he published under pseudonym Eriks Rīga. In those years his health declined, he caught tubercolosis. In 1943 he started collect materials for book about Latvian painter Kārlis Padegs

Karlis Padegs

Kārlis Padegs is one of Latvia's most popular artists. He studied under noted Latvian painter Vilhelms Purvitis at the Latvia Art Academy. Padegs' style was original and shocking - using themes which were very iconoclastic at the time....

. This work was never finished.
In 1944 Eriks Ādamsons married widow of Kārlis Padegs, Elvīra Berta Padega, who also suffered from tubercolosis. In 1945 they had a son Askolds, but he died after few months.
In 1946 Ādamsons health declined very fast and he died in Biķernieki sanatorium on February 28, 1946. He is buried at the Rainis Cemetery in Riga.

Literature

Eriks Ādamsons was known as an aesthete in life and also in his works. His novels and poems are sometimes called ornamental literature because he described details very well.
His poetry is referred to through dekadence

Dekadance

Dekadance is the title of two different collections of remixes by Australian rock group INXS: a 1983 12" EP released in the United States of songs from Shabooh Shoobah and a 1984 cassette released in Australia of songs from The Swing....

, baroque

Baroque

The Baroque is a period and the style that used exaggerated motion and clear, easily interpreted detail to produce drama, tension, exuberance, and grandeur in sculpture, painting, literature, dance, and music...

, rococo

Rococo

Rococo , also referred to as "Late Baroque", is an 18th-century style which developed as Baroque artists gave up their symmetry and became increasingly ornate, florid, and playful...

 and jugendstil. His biggest influences were works by Oscar Wilde

Oscar Wilde

Oscar Fingal O'Flahertie Wills Wilde was an Irish writer and poet. After writing in different forms throughout the 1880s, he became one of London's most popular playwrights in the early 1890s...

 and Knut Hamsun

Knut Hamsun

Knut Hamsun was a Norwegian author, who was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1920. He was praised by King Haakon VII of Norway as Norway's soul....

.

Works

• "Sudrabs ugunī" (1932)
• "Smalkās kaites" (1937)
• "Ģerboņi" (1937)
• "Saules pulkstenis" (1941)
• "Lielais spītnieks" (1942)
• "Sava ceļa gājējs" (1943–1944)
• "Sapņu pīpe" (1951)