New Vilnius Review Paper Edition

 

The new, green, summer-scented issue of the Vilnius Review has just arrived from the printing house! You’ll find in it carefully selected texts from contemporary Lithuanian literature, detailed reviews of poetry and prose, essays, interviews, and other noteworthy material.

Authors of this issue:
Ieva Dumbrytė, Austėja Jakas, Jurgita Jasponytė, Mindaugas Nastaravičius, Gytis Norvilas, Sigitas Parulskis, Tomas Petrulis, Mykolas Sauka, Vytautas Stankus, Jonas Zdanys, Kotryna Zylė, Agnė Žagrakalytė, Gintarė Bernotienė, Lina Buividavičiūtė, Juozas Grikis, Darius Žiūra.

Debuting in this issue:
Augustė Jasiulytė, Kšištofas Kšivecas, Lilija Rakova, Mūza O. Svetickaitė.

Translators:
Rimas Uzgiris, Markas Aurelijus Piesinas, Agnieška Leščinska, Kotryna Garanašvili, Eglė Elena Murauskaitė, Jayde Will, Romas Kinka, Erika Lastovskytė, Thibault Jacquot-Paratte.

Interviewers:
Laima Vincė Sruoginis, Saulius Vasiliauskas.

Editors:
Kerry Kubilius, Marius Burokas, Markas Aurelijus Piesinas, Rimas Uzgiris.

Designer:
Jurgis Griškevičius.

Editor-in-Chief:
Saulius Vasiliauskas.

Crew members:
Marius Burokas, Markas Aurelijus Piesinas.

 

If you want to get a copy, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

 

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Read the introduction:

 

Literature as an Exchange: A Fragile New World Through the Eyes of Lithuanian Writers 

 

Dear Vilnius Review Reader,

 

I write to you with joy because the past year was a strong one for Lithuanian literature and for our magazine that’s here to showcase it: Vilnius Review made the shortlist in the “Magazine & Newspaper Design” category at the international D&AD Awards in London – and, competing with big names like The New York Times and The Guardian, won a “Wooden Pencil” award! Then, in autumn 2024, as part of the Lithuanian Season in France, we put together a special French edition, Revue de Vilnius. Thanks to the support of the publisher Éditions Le Soupirail and the Lithuanian Culture Institute, the issue made its way into dozens of wonderful bookshops across France, was presented at festivals in Paris, Lyon, and Lille, and even got a shoutout in Le Monde under the headline “Les écrivains lituaniens à la conquête du monde” (Lithuanian writers conquering the world).

Honestly, Lithuanian writers aren’t really out to “conquer” anything. They’re just doing their work: trying to write literature that’s great, that resonates, that’s open to the world and enriched by its many voices and colors. In this slightly thicker-than-usual issue, we take a look at what that looked like over the past year.

Let’s start with prose. First up: IEVA DUMBRYTĖ, a writer whose debut novel, Šaltienos bistro (Aspic Bistro), received a handful of prestigious awards in 2021. I’d say it’s one of those rare cases where someone steps into the literary world seemingly out of nowhere – without being particularly active in it beforehand – and immediately writes themselves into literary history. Her second novel, Negrįžtantys (Those Never to Return), tells the story of a girl who wasn’t brought by a stork, as rural legend might have it, but was found and purchased by her parents at the Riga market – and named Riga because of it. This exciting novel mixes motifs of mythology and folklore with the stylistics of magical realism (I like to think of it as rural magical realism in the best sense of the term). It’s at once a sad family story, touching on the lives of our ancestors and ourselves, and a book that keeps making you laugh out loud.

If Ieva’s novel takes place in the countryside, then KOTRYNA ZYLĖ’S debut, Mylimi kaulai (Bones of my Beloved), echoes it in a way of depicting reality, instead bringing us into the city. More specifically, it moves the countryside – with all its myths and folklore – into a block of Soviet-era flats. Here, farm animals live in apartments, a daughter builds herself a nest inside the trolleybus her father drives, food is cooked out in the stairwell, and the neighbors perform magical rituals. And then there’s the style – imaginative, lively language with long, rhythmic sentences – it’s no wonder the book was nominated for the EU Prize for Literature.

Another recent debut came from sculptor and writer MYKOLAS SAUKA. But his novel takes a step away from myth and folk tales and returns us to the present, where young people try and mostly fail to build real relationships, to connect across mismatched experiences and broken communication. It’s a piece of autofiction about a busy artist trying to ease his loneliness by looking for dates on Tinder and other apps. It’s a modern novel full of irony – and self-irony.

This ironic stance puts Mykolas in conversation with the work of SIGITAS PARULSKIS, a poet, novelist, essayist, and playwright often referred to as a living classic. His latest novel, Kaip aš mečiau (How I Quit), follows a man who’s seen and done it all, and who’s now been told by his doctor to quit smoking. But in fact, this process of quitting (which serves as a capacious metaphor) becomes a way for the character to reflect on his past, memories, passions, and both the pleasant and unpleasant moments of his life. Parulskis’s writing is always provocative, questioning the boundaries of decency, morality, and the very meaning of human life in a powerful literary style.

Alongside fiction, you’ll also find two essays by the brilliant poet and writer GYTIS NORVILAS, taken from his book Požemių paukščiai (Birds of the Underground). Gytis’s writing is sharp, bold, and refreshingly unwilling to play along with clichés or conjunctures. Add to that his superb ear for language, and you get an essay collection that tackles a wide range of themes and feels like a genuine literary event.

Just as important – maybe even the literary event of the year – is Diseris (Dissertating), a book by artist and writer DARIUS ŽIŪRA, which, crosses the boundaries of a single artistic field.

It’s already earned him awards for both best nonfiction and most creative (fiction!) book of the year. It’s a book of autofiction based on the author’s artistic dissertation – introspective, restrained, steering clear of the kind of overblown ego that artists are often accused of. These texts reflect on deeply personal yet universally human experiences with precision and subtlety.

2024 was also a big year for Lithuanian poetry. We saw some impressive debuts, powerful second and third collections, and strong comebacks from writers returning with new books after a long break (long in terms of time, not necessarily creativity – since I see writing as continuous experience of observing life and the world around us, not just something that shows up as published texts).

Let’s start, say, with the number three: three third books by three very different authors. If we take a writer’s third book as a symbolic milestone – proof that they’ve taken root in the literary landscape – then I’d say Lina, Jurgita, and Tomas have definitely made their mark, both thematically and stylistically. Poet and literary critic LINA BUIVIDAVIČIŪTĖ, whose work falls under the umbrella of confessional poetry, released a collection called kelionių (journeys). Alongside the themes she’s explored in earlier books – deep reflections on womanhood and motherhood, (co)dependencies, and perversions – this collection brings more space for wholesome togetherness, a sense of inner reconciliation. It stands out, too, for its poems about travel – both literal, through exotic places, and metaphorical, through the landscapes of memory. Poet JURGITA JASPONYTĖ came out with a book that feels perfectly titled for the times we live in: Visata atsisėda netinkamoje vietoje (The Universe Settles in the Wrong Place)! Within the wider context of Lithuanian poetry, her voice is distinctly grounded in folklore, written in reserved but pointed language, sensuality, and closeness to nature. This latest collection also echoes contemporary global tragedies, like the war in Ukraine: “nes apšaudomam Kijeve / ryte / socialinio tinklo / žali rutuliukai / tikrina / ar kiti dar žali.” (“in shelled Kyiv / in the morning / green dots / on social media / check / if others are still green.”). The third poet with a third book is TOMAS PETRULIS. His latest collection of poetic prose, Daikto kūnas (The Body of a Thing) questions the limits of language itself, diving deep into the philosophy of language, the workings of human consciousness and subconsciousness, and body and soul (or denial of the latter). It might be the most distinctive book in recent Lithuanian poetry and doesn’t expect compromise from its reader – or it might come across as a pretentious exercise in linguistic (auto-)play, or as an innovative, boundary-breaking, and boundary-expanding project by the poet – or perhaps the lyrical subject, who already begins to define his relationship with the author in the confessional text on the book’s cover.

Let’s move on to the number four – because last year saw the release of fourth books by two standout poets who are already established in the literary scene: VYTAUTAS STANKUS and MINDAUGAS NASTARAVIČIUS, both born in 1984. I’d say these two stay a little closer to the tradition of modern Lithuanian poetry, closer to the core of language itself, searching for spacious metaphors to hold both the outer world and the inner one. Stankus’s collection Renkant kaulus (Gathering the Bones) leans into a darker worldview („čia šviesa niekada neužklysta“; „juodas nerimo kamuoliukas“; „juodas Vilnius, kurį pažinau“) (“light never wanders in here,” “a black ball of anxiety,” “the blackened Vilnius that I knew”). His clean, economical poetic voice is full of original metaphorical leaps and meaningful silences. The spacious, minimalist, spare and precise language also runs through Nastaravičius’s Antra dalis (“Part Two”), a collection that picks up on some of the threads from his previous book, Bendratis: vieno eilėraščio istorija (Infinitive: The Story of a Poem). Though made up of individual poems, it reads almost like one continuous piece, like a tightly constructed narrative of memory, threading together moments of childhood, coming-of-age, fatherhood, love, war, and the looming threat of war.

AGNĖ ŽAGRAKALYTĖ, a poet and writer based in Brussels, brings a more postmodern sensibility to the Lithuanian poetry scene. Her books stand out for their playfulness, sarcasm, poetic mischief, provocations, and a touch of erotica and the exotic. Liekamieji reiškiniai (Long-term Side Effects) is her ninth book, continuing the unmistakably Žagrakalytė-ish style, inviting readers into poetic escapades that are anything but everyday, even if they stay tightly tied to the everyday.

If I had to name the best debut of 2024, I would without much discussion hand it to AUSTĖJA JAKAS’S collection Mėlynieji malonumai (Blue Pleasures). It’s fresh and full of range – a kaleidoscope of authentic experiences and stories from a young, sensitive, and perceptive writer. The poems are surprising, full of unexpected turns, the kind you’ll find yourself wanting to revisit again and again.

Beyond the main prose and poetry features, this issue also continues our debut section, dedicated to authors who haven’t yet published a book but are clearly on their way there. This time we’re publishing work by emerging poets LILIA RAKOVA, MŪZA O. SVETICKAITĖ, and KŠIŠTOFAS KŠIVECAS, as well as writer AUGUSTĖ JASIŪLYTĖ. Their writing is sharp and full of promise – and their answers to our questionnaire are just as engaging, such as the question, “What place does literature hold in today’s culture, which is dominated by imagery and visual media?”

While putting this issue together, I had the idea to invite two poets and two prose writers – born in the late Soviet era or early 1990s and raised in an independent Lithuania – to join me for a conversation. So one evening, I sat down in my apartment with Ieva Dumbrytė, Mykolas Sauka, Lina Buividavičiūtė, and Tomas Petrulis, and we tried to talk about why we even write today, what keeps us going creatively, what kinds of emotions writing stirs up, and where we think we’ll be twenty years from now – assuming the world, as we know it, is still around.

As always, we also turn our attention to writers of Lithuanian heritage who were born and raised abroad. In this issue, LAIMA VINCĖ interviews poet, translator, and professor emeritus JONAS ZDANYS (b. 1950) in New Britain, Connecticut, who calls the Lithuanian language his spiritual home. And fellow poet JUOZAS GRIKIS (b. 1951), also raised in Connecticut, contributes an essay titled The Cosmic Inflation of Language, in which he reflects on the intersections between physics (the Big Bang) and language, origin, and identity.

On top of all that, you’ll find links to some of the books excerpted in this issue, reviews, a round-up of last year’s major literary awards and festivals, and a short guide to what’s going on in Vilnius – a UNESCO City of Literature since 2021!

To wrap up this foreword, I want to add that thanks to talented translators, literature doesn’t just travel – it creates exchange. It’s a trade of cultures, ideas, traditions, styles, worldviews, senses. This magazine and the translated work it publishes can be seen as a stimulus for that kind of exchange. It’s open to your responses, suggestions, and invitations to collaborate – for instance, with similar publications in your country. These exchanges help us get to know each other better, and they feel more vital than ever in a world as geopolitically shaky as the one we’re in now. I believe literature can – and must – remain a solid pillar of empathy and democracy, a space where our longings meet, and where our shared human desire to live in a peaceful, diverse, and dignified world can still be heard.

 

Saulius Vasiliauskas

Editor-in-chief

 

Translated by Kotryna Garanašvili