WORLD LITERARY ATLASBOOKS WITHOUT BORDERS · 2026
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Lithuania

Gavelis offers a route into Lithuanian prose through Vilnius, paranoia and multiple voices. Conflicting perspectives replace a single reliable version of events. Škėma’s White Shroud takes a Lithuanian poet into a New York elevator and emigrant anxiety. Grinkevičiutė records deportation to the far north, Parulskis confronts complicity in the Holocaust, and Sabaliauskaitė reconstructs multicultural seventeenth-century Vilnius. Choose between modernism, testimony and a broad historical saga.

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Books to begin with

An editorial selection · not ranked

Ričardas Gavelis

Vilnius Poker

About the book

A labour-camp survivor tries to understand Soviet Vilnius through conflicting narrative voices.

Original title: Vilniaus pokeris

EnglishTranslation

Vilnius Poker

Open Letter · 2009

Translated by Elizabeth Novickas

Edition source ↗
Edition cover: White Shroud — Antanas Škėma
English edition

Antanas Škėma

White Shroud

About the book

A Lithuanian poet working as a New York elevator operator revisits war and his lost country.

Original title: Balta drobulė

EnglishTranslation

White Shroud

Vagabond Voices

Edition source ↗

Sigitas Parulskis

Ciemność i partnerzy

About the book

A photographer becomes a witness to and participant in Nazi crimes against Lithuanian Jews.

Original title: Tamsa ir partneriai

PolishTranslation

Ciemność i partnerzy

Czarne

Edition source ↗
Edition cover: Shadows on the Tundra — Dalia Grinkevičiutė
English edition

Dalia Grinkevičiutė

Shadows on the Tundra

About the book

A teenage deportee’s memoir records hunger, cold and the struggle to survive in the far north.

Original title: Lietuviai prie Laptevų jūros

EnglishTranslation

Shadows on the Tundra

Peirene Press

Edition source ↗
Edition cover: Silva Rerum — Kristina Sabaliauskaitė
Polish edition

Kristina Sabaliauskaitė

Silva Rerum

About the book

The Narwoysz family saga recreates the multicultural world of seventeenth-century Vilnius and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.

Original title: Silva rerum

PolishTranslation

Silva Rerum

Wydawnictwo Literackie

Edition source ↗

Ričardas Gavelis

Memoirs of a Life Cut Short

About the book

Letters from a dead young man expose the distortions of life in Soviet society.

Original title: Jauno žmogaus memuarai

EnglishTranslation

Memoirs of a Life Cut Short

Vagabond Voices

Edition source ↗
Edition cover: In the Shadow of Wolves — Alvydas Šlepikas
English edition

Alvydas Šlepikas

In the Shadow of Wolves

About the book

After the war, hungry children from East Prussia cross into Lithuania in search of food, work and safety.

EnglishTranslation

In the Shadow of Wolves

Oneworld Publications

Edition source ↗
Edition cover: Maranta — Birutė Jonuškaitė
Polish edition

Birutė Jonuškaitė

Maranta

About the book

A young woman’s memory intertwines family voices, Lithuanian borderland traditions and experiences of the wider world.

PolishTranslation

Maranta

Pogranicze

Edition source ↗
Context and sources

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