He received numerous national and international literature awards and also Order of the Three Stars.
Skujins was born in Riga into a relatively poor worker's family and was raised in Iļģuciems neighborhood.
Skujiņš was among those Latvian displaced persons who decided to return to soviet occupied Latvia in 1945.
In 1946 he started to work in the newspaper Padomju Jaunatne (Soviet Youth) and became member of the Komsomol.
He actively participated in the Third National awakening and joined the Latvian Popular Front in 1989.