Inguna Daukste-Silasproģe has edited the essays of Roberts Mūks

Edited by literary scholar and Senior Researcher at the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia (UL ILFA) Inguna Daukste-Silasproģe, the essay collection by Roberts Mūks, “Šai dzīves ievārījumā kaut kā trūkst” (“Something Is Missing in This Jam of Life”), has reached readers. Published by Latvijas Mediji, the volume brings together essays written over a wide span of time, including works that have not previously been published in book form.

Thematically, the essays in the book encompass three fields of inquiry that were always central to Mūks’s thinking: the search for the meaning of life, literature, and religion. For Roberts Mūks, thinking is a journey—a journey toward the self, seeking the non-conflictual coexistence of diverse views and convictions.

The questions explored in the essays are undoubtedly relevant to the hurried individual of today’s digital, technology-driven age, who must daily find ways to slow down and pause in the midst of rapid movement; to think—thus, to live. The complex issues Mūks addresses in his essays are by no means expressed in a complicated manner. The reflections he shares with the reader do not offer definitive answers to all questions, but rather open up ever new directions in which to search.