Artists 2016: Poetic Territory Lithuania

Eugenijus Ališanka

Eugenijus Ališanka (c) Ricardas Ileika

Eugenijus Ališanka (born in Barnaul, Russia in 1960) is a poet, translator and essayist. Since he was 2 he has lived in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius, where he studied Mathematics and was for many years a researcher in the Institute for Culture and Art. From 1995 to 2002 he was the managing director of the international Poetry Spring poetry festival and director of the international programme of the Lithuanian writers’ association. Eugenijus Ališanka is a member of the Lithuanian PEN Club and since 2003 has been editor-in-chief of the magazine The Vilnius Review, which is published in English and Russian. He compares his life as a writer with the situation of Eastern Europe, which he describes as “indefiniteness of the region”, “idiosyncratic non-independence” and “geopolitical and existential unreality”.

Publications (selection):
Gatvė tarp dviejųbažnyčių (The street between two churches). Tytoalba 2012
Four unwritten histories. Host Publications 2011
Uit het archief van ongeschrevenbrieven.Uitgeverij P 2010

Awards/fellowships (selection):
Literarisches Colloquium Berlin fellowship 2015
Literaturhaus Krems fellowship 2012
Poetry Spring Prize for the book of the year 2012
Landis & Gyr Foundation fellowship, Zug 2010
Fellowship Internationales Haus der Autoren, Graz 2009
DAAD Artists in Berlin Programme 2006

Arkady Gotesman

Arkady Gotesman (born in Ukraine in 1959) is an exceptionally versatile drummer and percussionist. He is best-known as an improvisation performer. He has lived and worked in Lithuania for 30 years and performs in Trio Alliance with Petras Vyšniauskas and Wjatscheslaw Ganelin and in a duo with Liudas Mockūnas, but also as a solo artist. Since 1994 he has been a member of the Dainius Pulauskas Group. Arkady Gotesman also plays contemporary classical music by Anatolijus Šenderovas, Faustas Latėnas andr Šarūnas Nakas and performs at festivals of new music. He develops music performances and installations and composes music for the theatre.

Laurynas Katkus

Laurynas Katkus (c) Jurga Perminaite

Laurynas Katkus (born in Vilnius in 1972) is a poet, writer and translator. He studied Lithuanian Philology and Comparative Literature in Vilnius, Leipzig and Berlin and gained his PhD with a dissertation on exile in modern poetry. His poems and essays have been translated into English, German, Spanish, Polish, Russian and Slovenian. He has translated such writers as Friedrich Hölderlin, Walter Benjamin, Susan Sontag and Jan Wagner into Lithuanian. Laurynas Katkus has been awarded many fellowships including a Residency at the International Writing Program of the University of Iowa, the writing fellowship of the Academy of the Arts, Berlin and the 2016 Atelier F  ellowship of the Landis & Gyr Foundation. He lives with his family in Vilnius and works as a freelance writer and translator.

Publications (poetry):
Balsai, Rašteliai [Voices, Notes] (1998)

Rolandas Rastauskas

Rolandas Rastauskas (c) Eugenijus Macius

Rolandas Rastauskas alias RoRa (born in Šiauliai, Lithuania in 1954) is a poet, scriptwriter, essayist, performer and director at the National Drama Theatre Lithuania. His books have been translated into several languages including Polish, Swedish, English, Russian and German. He has translated the work of Czesław Miłosz, Tadeusz Różewicz and Adam Zagajewski and has taken part in many poetry festivals. As a performer of his own texts Rolandas Rastauskas regularly appears with his colleagues percussionist Arkady Gotesman and pianist Dima Golovanov. He also works as a columnist for the magazines Atgimimas and Lietuvosrytasso and for several eastern European cultural journals.

Publication:
Kitas pasaulis. Apostrofa 2004

Awards (selection):
Ieva Smonaitytė Prize 2016
Jotvingiai Prize for Poetry 2015
Lithuanian National Prize for Literature 2010