Undinė Radzevičiūtė
Undinė Radzevičiūtė (born 1967) is the most un-Lithuanian of Lithuanian writers. She does not mix with the literary world, and on the cover of her first book she wrote a piece openly criticising the Lithuanian language and anything that has traditionally been considered of value of Lithuanian literature. However, she has much to offer for her iconoclastic antics. She was among the first to suggest a broader, more cosmopolitan definition of national identity, one that includes neighbouring nations, which over history have had much cultural and genetic influence, even though she does not really bother with definitions. Instead, she writes about things as they are: her language is peppered with foreign words and Russian swearwords. An expert at brevity and black humour, she does not even need to break free of the tradition of Lithuanian literature: she clearly never belonged there in the first place. The novel Žuvys ir drakonai (Fishes and Dragons) was published in German, Bulgarian, Hungarian, Spanish, Croatian.
Žuvys ir drakonai (Fishes and Dragons). Vilnius: Baltos lankos, 2013. – 227 p. English, French, Hebrew, Slovenian, Spanish sample translations available
Radzevičiūtė’s fourth book steadily remains the favourite, even though she has written two more novels after this. The plot follows two stories. An 18th century Jesuit arrives in China, expecting to do missionary work. However, he feels more and more frustrated, as the Chinese culture, in his view, is like a sponge that absorbs everything but doesn’t change even a little itself. In the present day, in an unknown city a matriarchal family of grandmother, mother and two daughters, is spying on a Chinese restaurant out of their apartment window. While some have felt that the book is too disconnected, fragmented and difficult to put together into a whole, it still remains both an entertaining and a thoughtful read. The messy contact between different civilizations is obviously an important theme, but there’s more to the book than that: it is also a book about family and home, about vocation and freedom.
Grožio ir blogio biblioteka (The Library of Beauty and Evil). Vilnius: Lithuanian Writers’ Union Publishing House, 2020. – 200 p. Catalan, Croatian, Danish, English, German sample translations available
The main character – the owner of a grotesque collection of books – actually first appeared in a short story in Radzevičiūtė’s 2011 volume. Here, everything is developed: the collection, the story of its inheritance, the circumstances under which some of the books are acquired, and most importantly, the motivation. Walter Schultz was ready to die when he was in his 20s; he is essentially living overtime after that. This premise places the novel in an intertextual relationship with Dorian Grey, and the connection is further reinforced by the central question of how much evil can one do in the quest for beauty. Set in Berlin beginning with Weimar era and through most of the 20th century, the story is arranged mostly in a series of dialogues between Walter and his sister Lotta, attempting to explore the question. However, for Walter, it is not just theoretical.
Pavojingi žodžiai (Dangerous Words). Vilnius: Lithuanian Writers’ Union Publishing House, 2023. – 180 p. English sample translation available
Undinė Radzevičiūtė’s latest story unfolds within the theatre world: upon the death of a theatre director, another director takes over the staging of a rarely performed Giuseppe Verdi opera, notorious for its aura of superstition, and leads the entire creative team down a new path of exploration that puts the whole troupe through its paces. This is shaped not only by the dangerous power of words and the perils of superstition but also by the theatricality of life’s intrigues. By exposing the inner microcosm of the theatre, replete with a dense web of love, hate, and games of influence, Radzevičiūtė crafts a compelling portrait of our times and customs, which also reflects the recent years we have lived through: from the Covid pandemic to the war in Ukraine. As is customary for Radzevičiūtė, the novel provides a space where her protagonists meet to have a proper conversation, and even a verbal sparring match. But… In “Pavojingi žodžiai” (Dangerous Words), Radzevičiūtė’s distinctive irony transforms into sharp satire, targeting today’s most fashionable attributes: political correctness, the equal importance of every opinion, new sensitivities, feigned openness, the new ideology aiming to format our minds, the present’s all-pervasive phenomenon of relevance, and, of course, cancel culture.
Read English sample translation
Awards
2024: The Library of Beauty and Evil shortlisted for the Prix Médicis for foreign literature (France)
2020: The Library of Beauty and Evil awarded the Most Creative Book of the Year Prize (Lithuania)
Selected translations
French: La bibliotèque du beau et du mal. Translated by Margarita Barakauskaitė-Le Borgne. Paris: Viviane Hamy Éditions, 2024
Latvian: Zivis un pūķi. Translated by Dace Meiere. Riga: Janis Roze Publishers, 2021
Croatian: Ribe i zmajevi. Translated by Mirjana Bračko. Zagreb: Ibis grafika, 2021
German: Das Blut is Blau. Translated by Cornelius Hell. Salzburg-Wien: Residenz Verlag, 2019
Fische und Drachen. Translated by Cornelius Hell. Salzburg-Wien: Residenz Verlag, 2017
Spanish: Peces Y Dragones. Translated by Margarita Santos Cuesta. Fulgencio Pimentel, 2019
Latvian: Asinis zilas, debesis pelēkas. Translated by Dace Meiere. Riga: Janis Roze Publishers, 2019
Bulgarian: Риби и дракони. Translated by Antonija Penčeva. Sofia: Panorama, 2019
Hungarian: Halak és sárkányok. Translated by Aranka Laczházi. Budapest: Typotex Publishing, 2018
Estonian: Ei mingit Baden – Badenit. Translated by Tiiu Sandrak. Tallinn: Loomingu raamatukogu, 2-3, 2014
Contact for rights: undine3600@yahoo.com
Contact for samples & other inquiries: kotryna.pranckunaite@