Flesh Coloured Dominoes

When Baroness Valtraute von Bruegen’s officer husband’s body is severed in two she is delighted to find that the lower half has been sewn onto the upper body of the humble local captain Ulste. She conceives a child only to see the return of her husband in one piece. A beautifully written surrealist novel cum political allegory, Flesh-Coloured Dominoes transports the reader between 18th century Baltic gentry and the narrator’s life in the modern world. The connection between the two narratives gradually becomes clear in a mesmerizing fantasy of love, lust, and loss. Born in Riga, Latvia, in 1926, Zigmunds Skujins is one of the most renowned Latvian writers of the late 20th century, receiving numerous Latvian and international literature awards. Translated from the Latvian by Kaija Straumanis.