Lithuanian Writers
- About | Ruta Sepetys
Ruta Sepetys (b. 1967) is a Lithuanian-American writer of historical fiction. She is a #1 New York Times bestselling author and a winner of the Carnegie Medal. Follow the link to learn more about this outstanding author. - Key Woman in Lithuania’s History – The Story of Žemaitė | LRT
Žemaitė (1845-1921) was the pen name of Julija Beniuševičiūtė-Žymantienė. She was a Lithuanian writer, democrat, and educator. Born to impoverished gentry, she became one of the major participants in the Lithuanian National Revival. She wrote about peasant life in the style best described as realism. Follow the link to learn more about this exceptional person and writer. - Tomas Venclova | British Council
Tomas Venclova (b. 1937) is a Lithuanian poet, prose writer, scholar, philologist and translator of literature. He is also one of the five founding members of the Lithuanian Helsinki Group, which was one of the first human rights organizations in Eastern Europe. Follow the link above to read more. - Marius Burokas | Versopolis Review
Marius Burokas (b. 1977) is a Lithuanian poet and translator who studied Lithuanian language and literature at Vilnius University. Marius writes for 'Šiaurės Atėnai', which is a weekly culture newspaper, and does book reviews for “Intelligent Life” magazine and National radio (LRT). Follow the link to learn more about this writer. - Existential Fairy Tales: An Interview with Lithuanian Author Rasa Aškinytė | Deep Baltic
Follow the link above to read an interview with Rasa Aškinytė (b. 1973), a representative of the new generation of Lithuanian writers whose novels “The Easiest” and “The Man Who Needed Nothing” have been well received and published in English.
Lithuanian Literature
Between Shades of Gray by Call Number: PZ7.S47957 Be 2011Publication Date: 2011Fifteen-year-old Lina is a Lithuanian girl living an ordinary life - until Soviet officers invade her home and tear her family apart. Separated from her father and forced onto a crowded train, Lina, her mother, and her young brother make their way to a Siberian work camp, where they are forced to fight for their lives. Lina finds solace in her art, documenting these events by drawing. Risking everything, she leaves clues of their location in her drawings and secretly passes them along, hoping her drawings will make their way to her father's prison camp. But will strength, love, and hope be enough for Lina and her family to survive?
Vilnius Poker by Call Number: PG8722.17.A84 V5613 2009Publication Date: 2009An assemblage of troubled grotesques struggle to retain identity and humanity in an alternately menacing and mysterious Vilnius, the Lithuanian capital, under Soviet rule in the 1970s and 1980s.
Magnetic North: Conversations with Tomas Venclova by Call Number: PG8722.32.E5 Z46 2017Publication Date: 2017Taking the form of an extended interview with Lithuanian poet Tomas Venclova, this book interweaves Eastern European postwar history, dissidence, and literature. It also details Venclova's artistic work, expanding our understanding of the significance of this writer, whose books are central to contemporary European culture.
The Fate of Philosophy by Call Number: B99.L52 S6513 2011Publication Date: 2011In this book the author asserts that the fate of philosophy is something different from the so-called history of philosophy. The exemplary territory of the history of philosophy is pure language, set back from the living experience of speechless things, whereas the fate of philosophy is related to the existential experience of a speechless thing and so it is not historical and is timeless.
The Ballads of Kukutis by Call Number: PG8722.23.A7 K813 2011Publication Date: 2011Set in the Stalinist era, when Lithuanian farmers lost everything due to the process of collectivization, this book documents the life of a village idiot/trickster Kukutis. Unable to comprehend the strictures of the totalitarian regime, he says and does whatever he likes and is a potent symbol of freedom until the downfall of communism in Lithuania.
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