The Dedalus Book of Lithuanian Literature

Author: Almantas Samalavicius

Translator: Jura Avizienis, Ada Mykole Valaitis, Jayde Will   Cover design: Marie Lane  

The Dedalus Book of Lithuanian Literature attempts to reflect the transition of Lithuanian literature since the beginning of the twentieth century, when Lithuania was still an agrarian and colonized country on the margins of Europe, to its present modern and post-modernist phase. Lithuanian literature was suppressed in the nineteenth century by the Russians but by the eve of WW II was flourishing again. A new Russian occupation reversed this and led to a Soviet-style socialist realism in fiction. The last decades of the twentieth century saw the rise of a new generation of writers who dealt with Lithuania's history and the contemporary world.

The Dedalus Book of Lithuanian Literature also features the writings of the generation of novelists and short-story writers that came to prominence after the re-establishment of independence in 1990.