One novel, two titles
Nora Ikstena’s Mātes piens appeared in Latvian in 2015. The title means Mother’s Milk; the English edition is called Soviet Milk. Peirene Press credits Margita Gailitis as its translator and gives 1 March 2018 as the publication date. Keep the original title and the translator’s credit beside any discussion of the English edition.[1][2][3]
The novel alternates between unnamed mother and daughter narrators speaking in the first person. Anna Paula Pujēna’s study stresses this subjective organisation: the period is encountered through the characters’ experiences and their relationship. That makes the characters’ knowledge of one another a useful starting point for reading.[2]
What passes between generations
Pujēna discusses the mother’s refusal to breastfeed as part of the story’s concern with what one generation passes to the next. Within the novel, the mother believes she can protect her daughter from something harmful in herself. This is a character’s understanding within a literary work. It is not a biological account of how political experiences are inherited.[2]
Keep the two narrators distinct while reading, even when their language or concerns seem close. Ask what each knows about the other, what remains unspoken, and how a repeated situation changes when it is told from another position. This lets the relationship remain complicated rather than turning either character into a simple symbol for a whole country.
Food as a way of reading power
Laura Laurušaitė’s 2025 study reads food imagery across Lithuanian and Latvian writing about the Soviet period. In her discussion of Ikstena, milk’s association with nourishment and care comes into tension with the mother’s refusal and the daughter’s aversion to compulsory milk at school. Laurušaitė interprets this tension through questions of imposed identity and power. To follow her reading, ask how the significance of milk changes between home and school.[1]
Laurušaitė also considers a mushroom-picking episode in which uncertainty about what is safe to eat becomes part of the mother and daughter’s encounter. Her analysis connects that uncertainty with the novel’s wider treatment of constrained knowledge and choice. Read this alongside the milk scenes to consider how care, risk and uncertainty enter the family story.[1]
The novel and the film make different choices
Ināra Kolmane’s 2023 film Mātes piens adapts the novel. Pujēna notes a concrete difference: the novel’s mother and daughter are unnamed, while the film names them Astra and Nora. She also contrasts the novel’s subjective narration with the film’s more explicit presentation of a historical setting. This comparison describes how two works construct their stories; it does not establish that the film is an objective record.[2]
When comparing them, first identify which work supplies a name, scene or emphasis. Then ask what the change allows that work to do. A historical claim drawn from either still needs appropriate historical evidence. For a different approach to remembered experience in fiction, continue with Tūla and its relationship with Vilnius.
References
Sources accessed on 6 November 2026. The locators below identify the relevant passages.
Laura Laurušaitė. 2025. Sovietinė ideologija ant padėklo: maistas lietuvių ir latvių literatūroje / Soviet Ideology on a Platter: Food in Lithuanian and Latvian Literature. Colloquia, 56, pp. 140 to 158. DOI: 10.51554/Coll.25.56.07. Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore. Scholarly journal research article. Accessed 6 November 2026.
Locator: Introduction and English abstract: Mātes piens 2015, English Soviet Milk 2018. Full HTML section Pienas kaip atimto nacionalumo naratyvas. Full HTML section Valgoma ar nuodinga? Grybai kaip ideologinis maisto vaizdinių lygmuo. Source language: Lithuanian, with English abstract. English paraphrase.
Anna Paula Pujēna. 2025. Dubultadaptācija filmā Mātes piens: vēsturiskums un ekranizācija / Double Adaptation in the Film Soviet Milk: Historicity and Adaptation for Screen. Krustpunkti: kultūras un mākslas pētījumi, no. 2 (2024), pp. 110 to 116. DOI: 10.55877/kkmp.2024.2.487. Latvian Academy of Culture. Scholarly journal adaptation study. Accessed 6 November 2026.
Locator: pp. 110 to 112, novel, title and adaptation context. pp. 112 to 113, Subjektīva vēsture; p. 115, conclusion. p. 112, generational transmission, the milk metaphor and the mother’s belief. pp. 112 to 115, names, subjective history, media differences and conclusion. Source language: Latvian, with English abstract. English paraphrase.
Peirene Press. 2018. Soviet Milk. Peirene Press. Publisher edition record. Accessed 6 November 2026.
Locator: Translator credit and Publication date, ISBN 9781908670427.