HOMECOMING TALES IN LATVIAN POST-EXILE LITERATURE

Latvian exile literature was formed when a part of Latvian society left homeland, when the country was reoccupied by the Soviet army at the end of the Second World War. Exile society and, accordingly, literature maintained both the dream of restoring independence and returning to the homeland as the goal of the exiles. The independence was regained after 45 years and this makes the concept of return problematic. This motif is one of the essential ones in post-exile literature. This research examines the representation of the return experience in two prose texts � Agate Nesaule� novel �Lost Midsummers�, in which return can only be a visit, and Margita Gutmane� documentary text �Life is one devil�s invention�, in which the clash of experiences is depicted from the position of a person who has come permanently.