On 13 December 2003 Latvia lost one its most popular writers: Maris Caklais (1940âÀ“2003), who died after a long illness. Caklais, who wrote both poetry and prose, was awarded Latvia's Three Star Order in 2000 and the Herder Award in Vienna in 2003. He was a member of Latvia's National Culture Council.
In recent years, Caklais wrote biographical books about the composer, Imants Kalnins, and the architect, Gunars Birkerts. In November of 2003, the publishing house Petergailis brought out Caklais' book about President Vaira Vike-Freiberga; it is entitled Izaicinajums. Latvijas valsts pirma prezidente (Challenge. The First Madam President of Latvia).
In 1987, in the book Premonition, a collection of poems by Maris Caklais translated in English, the Latvian poetess Astride Ivaska wrote: "Maris Caklais is passionately, relentlessly committed to the struggle for a fuller consciousness of himself as an artist, of his native country Latvia, and his people. This commitment expresses itself in tenderness as well as irony, but most often in a streak of compassion that feeds his poetry like an underground stream."
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Premonition, Riga, 1987
