DRIVE YOUR PLOW OVER THE BONES OF THE DEAD

About Nobel Prize in Literature laureate Olga Tokarczuk's masterpiece, it has been said that once you read it, it stays with you for life. The novel has captivated readers with its philosophical crime-detective plot and its sweeping, age-old themes. At its center is Janina, a persistent woman with a complex character whose passions are nature study and astrology. She is a modern romantic with the flair of Miss Marple.

In a remote Polish village, where the teacher Janina feels like an outsider, the local hunters suddenly start dying one after another in the strangest possible ways. All the evidence leads to a surprising conclusion: are animals really guilty of a conspiracy and taking revenge for their slaughtered fellow creatures? No one listens to Janina, who believes this is nature's revenge. The intrigue tightens: where can a human's place be found if nature may have other intentions?

Writer Olga Tokarczuk is a star of contemporary literature. Poland's right wing has called Tokarczuk a traitor, and her publishers have even had to hire bodyguards for the writer. She is not afraid to speak truths that no one wants to hear, while at the same time she has managed to address society on themes that many find radical and unacceptable. The novel "Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead" has received much and varied acclaim both in Poland and around the world. Among the awards, the author also has the International Booker Prize.

The novel is being staged and its stage version is created by Syrian-born director Ola Mafalani from the Netherlands. Together with talented Latvian artists, whom she calls her "dream team" - German Ermičs, the Latvian designer who is making his scenography debut and is currently the best-known Latvian designer in the world, the internationally acclaimed composer Krists Auznieks, the talented choreographer Elīna Gediņa and the outstanding costume designer duo MAREUNROL'S - Mafalani will offer audiences a visually ambitious poetry, unlike anything previously seen in Latvian theaters. It will mingle with humor, ideas that free the mind and soul, the smell of food and unexpected stage magic.

Mafalani has created theater versions of several well-known film works, for example the stage adaptation of the Danish series "Borgen," which lasted nine hours and was a revolutionary theater event in Europe. Mafalani is considered the queen of fantasy, with unpredictable scenes woven through her productions and characters emerging almost out of nowhere.

The novel and the dramatization use motifs from the prophetically magnificent texts of the English poet and painter William Blake. A fragment from Blake's poem "The Traveler in Spirit" in the translation by Vizma Belševica; the remaining translations and the translation of the novel by Ingmāra Balode.

The music recording for the performance features the State Academic Choir "Latvija" under the direction of Māris Sirmais. The recording was made by Gustavs Ērenpreiss