Background
BERZINS, Uldis Egils was born on May 17, 1944 in Riga. Parents: Pauls Berzins and Biruta Sebastiana Berzina (née Vitola).
linguist translator author poet
BERZINS, Uldis Egils was born on May 17, 1944 in Riga. Parents: Pauls Berzins and Biruta Sebastiana Berzina (née Vitola).
He studied Latvian philology at the University of Latvia and published his first collection of poetry in 1980. Bērziņš studied Turkish in Leningrad University Oriental Studies Department (from 1968 to 1971), and also studied in the Asian and African Studies section of Moscow State University (concentrating on Persian and Turkish), at Tashkent State University (Uzbek), Reykjavik University (Icelandic), as well as in Czechoslovakia, Sweden and other countries.
Bērziņš has taken part in the international Bible translation seminar at the Amsterdam Open University and Lund University forum over questions regarding Koran translations. From 2002 on he has been teaching Turkish at the Modern Languages Department of the University of Latvia. Bērziņš" poetry has been translated into German, Swedish, Estonian and Lithuanian.
In 2009, Bērziņš finished the translation of Quran into Latvian, a fifteen years" work of his.
Awards: Three Star Order (1995), Zinaida Lazda Award (1994), the Baltic Assembly Award (1995) and the Spidola Award (2000). Bērziņš translates from Polish, Russian, Ancient Icelandic, Turkish, Azerbaijani, Turkmen, Farsi, Ancient Hebrew and Arabic.
He also knows Ivrit (Modern Hebrew), Tatar and Chuvash language.
Lutheran
Club C, Writers’ Union of Latvia, Latvian Poets, Playwrights, Essayists, Editors and Novelists Centre.
Spouse Jelena Berzins (née Staburova), 1974.