Interviews

She was the first on the literary scene to debut as a bold critic, impervious to the influence of a small community where, because everyone knows everyone, one is no longer able (or no longer wants) to be objective. Virginija Cibarauskė was never afraid of deconstructing the works of geniuses or literary authorities, poking fun […]

As we begin our conversation, I am thinking about how the profession of a translator, if it were to be compared to that of a writer, receives much less attention in the public eye, yet the translator’s role in literary and cultural processes is no less significant. As you are both a translator and a

One of the most active translators of Lithuanian literature into English is Romas Kinka. His biography is so multi-layered that we could have a conversation just about his personal history: born in Lithuania in 1942, his family and he left his native city of Šiauliai in 1944, spent the next 4 years in various displaced

Antanas Šileika – one of the best-known and most acknowledged prose writers of Lithuanian descent in the world – was born in 1953 in the Toronto suburb of Weston into a Lithuanian émigré family. He studied French and was an English-language teacher in Paris; a member of the editorial board of the magazine Paris Voices; the

Prose writer Undinė Radzevičiūtė’s debut in the literary field was marked by her novel Strekaza (2003). An unconventional author incomparable to other Lithuanian writers, she instantly received glowing reviews by critics and a wide readership. Her novel Žuvys ir drakonai (Fishes and Dragons) was awarded the European Union Prize for Literature in 2015. Her fifth book, Kraujas mėlynas (Blue Blood), was

You begin your new poetry collection Štai (There) with the text: “I’m only / Scared of speed / The other / You / Does not scare me.” You finish it with a similar one, only that it’s stated in two lines: “Only speed scares me / I’m not scared of the other you.” Can we say that

1. A number of essays from Uosto fuga were published earlier. Some of them appeared between 1998 and 2016, attracted considerable interest, and sparked discussions in the public space.  What prompted you to put them in a book and what principle lies behind the ordering of the essays? Did you want to emphasize the multiplicity of voices and

Words come from the lump in the solar plexus. Then, assisted by the hand and a ball-point pen, they are laid down on paper. (Vytautas Stankus). What inspires poetry today? What new qualities do poets observe in the writing of their contemporaries? These are questions I ask Vytautas Stankus, Nerijus Cibulskas, and Mantas Balakauskas, three

Erika Lastovskytė: Could you tell us more about A Midsummer Night’s Press? What is your aesthetics, mission, and influences? Lawrence Schimel: We started publishing books ten years ago. A Midsummer Night’s Press began when I was an undergraduate at university. There was a letter press in the basement of my dormitory. I contacted some poets

Q: How do you define the notion of revolt? Revolt is pushing forward, running from the comfort zone, and constant self-questioning as to where everything is to move next. It is also self-sacrifice in making a new step forward because it is not clear what awaits the genre you represent. Revolt, then, is the front