Undinė Radzevičiūtė is a

Lithuanian Lithuanian may refer to: * Lithuanians * Lithuanian language * The country of Lithuania * Grand Duchy of Lithuania * Culture of Lithuania * Lithuanian cuisine * Lithuanian Jews as often called "Lithuanians" (''Lita'im'' or ''Litvaks'') by other Jew ...

novelist, a winner of the

EU Prize for Literature The European Union Prize for Literature (EUPL), established in 2009, is a European Union literary award. Its aim is to recognise outstanding new literary talents from all over Europe, to promote the circulation and translation of literature among ...

in 2015.

Biography

She was born on 16 June 1967. Her mother's family came from

Courland Courland (; lv, Kurzeme; liv, Kurāmō; German and Scandinavian languages: ''Kurland''; la, Curonia/; russian: Курляндия; Estonian: ''Kuramaa''; lt, Kuršas; pl, Kurlandia) is one of the Historical Latvian Lands in western Latvia. ...

, a Germanic-influenced region of

Latvia Latvia ( or ; lv, Latvija ; ltg, Latveja; liv, Leţmō), officially the Republic of Latvia ( lv, Latvijas Republika, links=no, ltg, Latvejas Republika, links=no, liv, Leţmō Vabāmō, links=no), is a country in the Baltic region of ...

and has Baltic German-Polish-Lithuanian roots, while her father was Lithuanian-Polish. Radzevičiūtė studied at the

Vilnius Academy of Arts The Vilnius Academy of Arts ( lt, Vilniaus dailės akademija, previously ''State Art Institute of Lithuania'') in Vilnius, Lithuania, grants a variety of degrees in the arts. History The Academy traces its roots back to the creation of the Arc ...

. She worked for many years in the advertising industry for

Saatchi & Saatchi Saatchi & Saatchi is a British multinational communications and advertising agency network with 114 offices in 76 countries and over 6,500 staff. It was founded in 1970 and is currently headquartered in London. The parent company of the agency gr ...

and

Leo Burnett Leo Burnett (October 21, 1891 – June 7, 1971) was an American advertising executive and the founder of Leo Burnett Company, Inc. He was responsible for creating some of advertising's most well-known characters and campaigns of the 20th cent ...

Literary career

Radzevičiūtė published her first book, a novella titled ''Strekaza'', in 2003. This was followed in 2010 by ''Frankburgas''. Her first collection of short stories, ''Baden Badeno nebus'' was published in 2011. These tales share motivations, and the same characters appear in them. Sooner or later, an individual begins to be pressured and is forced to pretend to be simpler than they are, to adapt to the demands of society, which eventually leads to their destruction. Radzevičiūtė's writing is described as ''minimalist, savvy, diamond-sharp, as if cutting off unnecessary words and rejecting descriptions''. Her fourth book ''Fish and Dragons'' (2013) won the 2015

. This was a work of historical fiction with two parallel narratives: one set in imperial China and following the Italian painter Castiglione's efforts to impress the

Qing The Qing dynasty ( ), officially the Great Qing,, was a Manchu-led imperial dynasty of China and the last orthodox dynasty in Chinese history. It emerged from the Later Jin dynasty founded by the Jianzhou Jurchens, a Tungusic-speaki ...

ruler, the other about three generations of women living in Vilnius' Chinatown. In both strands, she described the cultural clashes between the East and the West. Radzevičiūtė's next work, ''180'', was a departure from the historical genre; this novel had a detective theme as it explored how big victories could collapse into utter defeat, and how attempts at reparation could result in death. Her sixth book ''Kraujas mėlynas'' won the 2018 Lithuanian Writers' Union Prize. Radzevičiūtė's work has been translated into German, Russian, Italian, Spanish, English, Hungarian, Croatian, Serbian, Bulgarian, Latvian, Estonian, Finnish.

Selected works

* * * * * * *''Grožio ir blogio biblioteka.'' Lietuvos rašytojų sąjungos leidykla. 2020 .

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Radzeviciute, Undine 1967 births Living people Vilnius Academy of Arts alumni 21st-century Lithuanian writers