Evening with Kristina Sabaliauskaite

THURSDAY, 7 NOVEMBER - 7.30 PM
Writer Kristina Sabaliauskaitė in conversation with theatre director Gintaras Varnas
St Catherine’s Church (Vilniaus g. 30, Vilnius)
Ticket distributor “Tiketa”
Duration 105 min

Kristina Sabaliauskaitė
From her debut in 2008 with a historical novel 'Silva rerum', this Lithuanian author counts already a second decade of number one bestsellers. Her name is eponymous with the spectacular rebirth of Lithuanian historical novel and with the renewed interest in the Lithuanian literature.

Kristina Sabaliauskaite has a PhD in art history and her tetralogy 'Silva rerum' (2008-2016) has attracted unprecedented attention of readers, multiple reprints, great critical acclaim and success in neighbouring countries. She holds the 'Jurga Ivanauskaitė literary award' (2008), her novels have been voted The Lithuanian Book of the Year twice (2009 and 2011), she has received Liudas Dovydėnas literary award (2015) for the best novel. In Poland 'Silva rerum' was shortlisted among the finalists of Central European Angelus Literary award (2016), and 'Silva rerum II' was acknowledged as the Best Prose Translation of 2018. The Man Booker International winner Olga Tokarczuk considers Kristina Sabaliauskaitė as being 'one of the most powerful voices of historical fiction in Europe'.

The writer has repeated her success in other literary genres – the short story collection 'Danielius Dalba & Other Stories' (2012) has also proved to be a bestseller.

Her latest historical novel 'Peter's Empress' (2019) – is a powerful and captivating, meticulously researched and based on historical sources 'herstory' of Peter the Great's wife Marta Skowronska, which depicts the clash of the Eastern and Western mentalities and cultures in one royal marriage. It is a story about time and violence, addictions, split and reinvented personalities, the brutality of history and the enchanting visions that gave birth to the immortal beauty.