Anna Sakse

Anna Sakse (January 16, 1905 – March 2, 1981) was a Latvian writer and translator. She also wrote under the names Austra Sēja, Smīns, Trīne Grēciņa and Zane Mežadūja.

She was born into a poor farming family in Vidzeme and studied teaching and Baltic philology at the University of Riga but left without completing a degree. Sakse next worked at translation and proofreading for various publications. She married Edgars Abzalons. In 1934, she joined the Communist party, then illegal. At the start of World War II, she left for Russia. During this time, she was editor of the Latvian communist journal Cīņa. She returned to Latvia in 1944 at the same time as the Soviet army entered the country. In 1965, she was awarded the title People's Writer of the Latvian SSR. Some of her works appeared in Russian translations before they were published in Latvian. Her works have been translated in several eastern European and Asian languages.

She died in Riga at the age of 76. Her son Evgenii Andreevich Salhias de Tournemire wrote historical novels.