Reviews

The fame of Laura Sintija Černiauskaitė, a writer, playwright, and poet, is not limited to the Lithuanian literary scene. For her novel Kvėpavimas į marmurą (Breathing into Marble, 2006) the author received the European Union Prize for Literature, while her play Liusė čiuožia (Lucy Goes Skating, 2004) was awarded the main prize at the Berlin Theatre Festival.  Černiauskaitė’s literary

Fans of Giedra Radvilavičiūtė have waited for eight whole years for a new book to be released. Before this one, the writer published two personal collections. The second—Šiąnakt aš miegosiu prie sienos (Tonight I’m Sleeping by the Wall)—was awarded the European Union Prize for Literature, while in 2015 Radvilavičiūtė received the National Culture and Art Award—one

In twenty-first century Lithuanian poetry, a slow centripetal shift is taking place: in the last five years books of poetry only attempt to divulge and discover unique forms of expression, working with the structure of the text and the book, and even though shyly, try and test linguistic potential (in this context we can recall

A couple of decades after regaining independence, Lithuania is increasingly attracting the attention of foreign authors writing in English and other languages. There is growing interest in the history of the Lithuanian resistance movement against the occupying powers and the country’s current reality. One of the first writers to turn his attention to life in

There aren’t many Lithuanian authors writing on LGBT(QI) themes. One of the first openly homoerotic scenes I read in Lithuanian prose was a fragment in Jurga Ivanauskaitė’s scandalous novel Ragana ir lietus (The Witch and the Rain, 1993), in which the main protagonist, disappointed in love and men, allows herself to be seduced by a lesbian who

Graphic novels, colloquially known as comics, occupy a strange place in Lithuanian literature: they make their way in with difficulty (despite comic books of varied quality from Sin City to Maus to numerous examples of manga—all popular within the Lithuanian market), are created in small numbers, and yet those that are written generate interest. Miglė Anušauskaitė’s and Gerda Jord’s 10

In the pre-medieval Christian tradition, it was typical to believe that awaiting humans after death were not only Hell, Paradise or Purgatory but also the fourth after-life dimension, Limbo, where souls travelled immediately after their earthly existence came to an end. Only later, God permitting, did they traverse to the place they deserved to be

Jaroslavas Melnikas (b. 1959) is a writer well known not just in Lithuania but in a cultural broader context: he is a member of both the Lithuanian and the Ukrainian writers’ unions. Born in Western Ukraine, Melnikas, a prose writer, critic, and philosopher, graduated from the Faculty of Philology of Lviv University and later enrolled

Liutauras Degėsys (born 1953) is a particular case within the Lithuanian cultural scene. Therefore, I have chosen not only to review the collection of essays Apatiniai gyvenimo drabužiai (Underclothes of Life) published by the Lithuanian Writers Union Publishing House earlier this year, but also to mention more of the author’s activities: these essays only summarize and outline

In Lithuanian and other literature, budding poets often experience a strong need to define their place in the literary tradition, to figure out and reveal to the reader the characteristics of their use of language that render them unique and original. Dovydas Grajauskas’s, Virginija Kulvinskaitė’s and Tomas Petrulis’s debut works are the most prominent examples