Laima Vincė: Tell me about your Lithuanian heritage. Antanas Sileika: My Lithuanian heritage is very typical for people of my generation. I had parents who fled Lithuania in the middle of 1944 and then hoped to return but didn’t. I have a brother who was born in Lithuania, a brother who was born in a displaced persons
The Death of Tony – A Conversation with Antanas Sileika Read More »
*** I remember the village in the mountain gorge where they sold fluffy sheep fur together with the mauled paws of wolves this is something I just can’t explain *** he’s from an aquarium or at least he’s lived in one long turning into a plant a stone a fish every day he assimilates
Laima Vincė: What doors did learning Yiddish open for you? Ellen Cassedy: I started studying Yiddish in 1989 when my mother died, rather young. It was a way to remember her even though she didn’t actually speak Yiddish. Laima Vincė: She didn’t? Ellen Cassedy: She would sort of sprinkle a word here and there into her speech. I
Rediscovering a Litvak Identity Through Yiddish: Interview with Ellen Cassedy Read More »
URŠULĖ TOLEIKYTĖ I was born on the 2nd of November 1992. I’m from a seaside town, but I moved to Vilnius after graduating high school. I have a degree in psychology, while my current research interests are in sociology. My creative pursuits are poetry and theater. For a Safer World when I was fifteen
Poetry Debuts: Uršulė Toleikytė, Haroldas Baubinas, Alina Borzenkaitė Read More »
Don’t Cry, Dear Mother Don’t cry, dear mother, that a young son Will ride to defend your home. When he stands tall, an oak in the sun, He’ll wait for Judgement Day to come. So don’t wring your hands like the wind, Which rings the branches of trees. You’ll have more sons, but a homeland
Earthworm Satsanga it is said that we owe a debt of gratitude to worms for the beauty of all vegetation and the harvest it brings us – quoted from the press – while looking up the definition of satsanga in dictionaries and wikipedia on my phone and youtube i suddenly remembered my earthworms – how
Diana Paklonskaitė Read More »
Diana Paklonskaitė takes her time to write: her debut poetry collection Gilaus mėlynumo (Deep Blue) appeared in 2006, the second book was published in 2014, and now, after another nine years, her latest collection Gėlės kaip šunys (Flowers Like Dogs), which is reviewed here, has reached readers. I tend to agree with the writer Donald Kajokas, who edited this
Earthworms’ Spiritual Practices and Urban Vagabonds Read More »
Laima Vincė: Thank you for agreeing to this interview. This is a big deal for the Lithuanian Writers Union and Vilnius Review magazine to have this opportunity to speak with you. Lidia: It’s a big deal for me too. Laima Vincė: Thank you for that. Lidia: And I’m feeling that you look so much like me. Laima Vincė: You definitely
Scar Tissue Surrounded by Astonishing Beauty: An Interview with Lidia Yuknavitch Read More »
The Last Supper Have you ever eaten pfloymen-tzimmes? If you never have, there’s nothing to regret, and don’t bother sampling any, it’s nothing special: potatoes, black prunes, beef: baked, dark brown, maybe due to the long baking, maybe due to the prunes, nothing out of the ordinary, just a taste of paradise, and mother used
Laima Vincė: Can you tell me about how your expertise as a Medievalist influences your poetry? Halyna Kruk: The literature of the Ukrainian baroque is my area of special interest. In Ukrainian literature the baroque period spans from the seventeenth to the nineteenth centuries. Laima Vincė: How does your work as a scholar of Ukrainian baroque literature
Poetry of Freedom and Dignity: An Interview with Ukrainian Poet Halyna Kruk Read More »
