Vilis Lācītis

Vilis Lācītis (real name Aleksandrs Ruģēns, born 1975) is a Latvian writer and musician. From 2002 to 2007 he played in the group Pupociklu vasara. He then moved to live in the UK and studied anthropology at Oxford University. He became well-known for his writing in 2010, when his debut novel Stroika to London was published, about the life of Latvian migrant workers in England, asking questions about Latvian identity in the twenty-first century in a humorous tone. The novel was signed with a pseudonym Vilis Lācītis; the author publicly appeared, dressed in a bear's mask, and his real name was not initially disclosed. The debut novel won a special prize at the Annual Literary Awards 2010 and was also nominated in the Best Debut category. This was followed by To Ramen Lacples (2011), which was originally created as a play, The Long Way to Hantimansiysk (2012, together with Schmidz Klonatan Wawert) and The Amsterdam Principle (2013). In January 2017, the English version of his first novel was published under the name Stroika with a London View.