Born in Riga, Latvia, Nora Ikstena is the author of two novels – Dzives svineana (Celebrating Life, 1998) and Jaunavas maciba (The Virgin's Lesson, 2001, awarded the Latvian Annual Prize for Literature), as well as Dzivesstasti (2004), the collection of short fiction of which Life Stories is the translation. Her writing has received some of Latvia’s top literary awards.