Danutė Kalinauskaitė (born 1959) published her first collection of short stories in 1987 and then fell silent for more than twenty years. However, she came back like a storm. She published two more collections of short fiction in 2008 and 2015, and that made her one of the most popular – and very likely one of the most loved – women writers in Lithuania. And everyone knows that short fiction never sells – but here’s a writer who has never written a novel! There seems to be no particular secret to it. There’s no convoluted drama in her biography. Instead, she’s a master observer. Her stories show great insight into the changes that recent major historic events have brought to individual lives of people and families. They often depict different generations next to each other, like a ready comparison of how the same reality can be perceived in very different ways. Most importantly, she has great compassion for her characters. Maybe that’s the secret?

Skersvėjų namai (The House of Drafts). Vilnius: Tyto alba, 2015. – 173 pp.

Kalinauskaitė’s latest collection in many ways continues in similar vein as the previous one. The stories feel firmly set in reality – they are full of recognizable references to places, times, news stories, events in Lithuania and the world. In the same way, they feel “recognizable” on a much smaller scale – in minor lifestyle details and small issues and problems that one can easily see as one’s own. The themes of family and home, time and memory. If anything, the stories focus even more on loneliness, isolation and alienation. The language is moving, but also witty, even if the story itself doesn’t seem to provide much to laugh about.

Selected translations

English: Striped: short story. Translated by Jayde Will. In: The Vilnius Review, 2016

Just Things: short story. Translated by Jura Avizienis. In: The Vilnius Review, 2008 (24)