The Dogs of Riga

AFTERWORD

The revolutionary events that took place in the Baltic countries during the last year were the basis of this novel. Writing a book with a setting and plot located in an environment unfamiliar to the author is, of course, a complicated business. It is even more problematic when one tries to steer a course through a social and political landscape that is still fluid. Apart from straightforward practical difficulties – Is a particular statue still standing on its pedestal on a given day, or has it already been pulled down and taken away? Does a particular street still have the same name as it did on a certain day in February 1991? – there are other more fundamental problems. Not least among them is the fact that we now have at least a provisional answer to the direction developments in the Baltic countries will take, but that knowledge had to be put aside in writing this book.

Reconstructing thoughts and emotions is, of course, the job of an author, but some assistance may well be necessary. In connection with this novel, I am greatly indebted to many people: I would like to thank two in particular, one by name and the other anonymously. Guntis Bergklavs put himself completely at my disposal to explain, remember, and make suggestions. He also taught me a lot about the secrets of Riga. I would also like to express my gratitude to the detective in the Riga "homicide squad" who so patiendy taught me how he and his colleagues went about their business.

We should bear in mind all the time what it was like then. Everything was so very different, even more vague than it is now. The fate of the Baltic countries is not yet decided, not by any means. There are still large numbers of Russian troops on Latvian territory. The future will be an intense struggle between the old and the new, between the familiar and the unfamiliar.

Just a few months after this book was finished, in the spring of 1991, the coup took place in the Soviet Union -the key incident that accelerated declarations of independence in the Baltic countries. Obviously, that coup (or the possibility that such a coup could happen) was at the very core of this novel, but like everybody else, I couldn't possibly foresee that it really would happen, or how it would turn out.

This is a novel. That means it is possible that not everything actually happened or looks exacdy the same as I have described it in the book. But it could have happened, exactly as described. Poetic licence gives the author the freedom to create a left luggage desk in a department store where there is no such thing in fact. Or to invent a furniture department out of fresh air. If necessary. And it sometimes is.

HENNING MANKELL, APRIL 1992