He was born in
Skrīveri,
Livonia. He graduated from the parish school in Skrīveri, then continued his self-study, devoting himself mainly to the study of languages such as German, Russian, English, French and Italian. He worked as a teacher, translator, and was also an active civil servant. Andrejs Upīts, while writing for the newspaper "Mājas viesis" under the pseudonym Andrei Araji in 1892, published his first articles,
Parunas, Skrīveros uzrakstītas (Recorded Proverbs of
Skrīveri) (No. 15) and
Kā mūsu senči agrāk Vidzemē dzīvojuši (How Our Ancestors Once Lived in Vidzeme) (No. 20). Upīts wrote novels, stories, drama, tragedy, comedy, poetry, satire, journalism, and literary criticism. His children's novel,
Sūnu ciema zēni (
The Boys of Moss Village), is included in the compulsory reading list of schools. He was one of the more multifaceted Latvian writers. Upīts' heroes possess striking character and he used a rich language. Under the influence of the
1905 Revolution, Upīts began to sympathize with
Marxist ideas. After the
February Revolution in 1917-1918 during the German occupation, Upīts was arrested. In 1919, Upīts was the head of the art department of the Education Commission of the
Latvian Socialist Soviet Republic. In 1920, after returning secretly to Latvia from Russia, he was arrested twice and was sentenced to death, from which he was saved by colleagues from cultural circles. After liberation, he lived in Riga and Skrīveri and from 1924 to 1930 worked in the editorial office of
Domas magazine. In 1940 Upīts supported the
Soviet occupation of Latvia and became a member of the
People's Seimas. He was appointed editor-in-chief of
Karogs and served in the post until 1941. At the end of the Second World War, he became Head of the Department of Latvian Literature of the
Latvian State University and founder and first director of the Institute of Language and Literature of the
Academy of Sciences of the Latvian SSR from 1946 to 1952. Upīts was Chairman of the Union of Writer of the Latvian SSR from 1944 to 1954. As a politician, Upīts was deputy chairman of the
Supreme Soviet of the Latvian SSR from 1941 to 1952. After his death in 1972, the A. Upīts Museum was opened in his honor in Riga and Skrīver. His 1945 novel
Zaļā zeme (Verdant Land) received the
USSR State Prize in 1946. Between 1945 and 1946 he served again as the editor-in-chief of
Karogs. On 16 October 2024 the
Riga City Council approved the relocation of an Upīts monument in
Riga. == Significant works ==