Novel
Priešaušrio vieškeliai
Not translated into English
Bronius Radzevičius · 1979
Synopsis
Les Grands Chemins d'avant l'aube: the first part paints the Lithuanian village of the post-war period, a community damaged by the war in which remnants of ancient myths and rites survive, while a young man forms himself and makes his way towards writing. The second gives way to a constant unease and a reflection on the self that never ceases. The narrative, framed, goes from causes to effects and sometimes backwards, and the perception of the observer counts for more in it than the appearance of things.
Context
The first part was published by Vaga in 1979. The author did not live to see the second: Juozas Aputis edited it from the manuscripts, and the complete novel came out in 1985 in two volumes. The Lithuanian encyclopaedia sees in it the first opening of the I of such intimacy in postwar Lithuanian prose. Dainius Vaitiekūnas, who devoted a book to him, speaks of an essayistic novel in which the concrete image is mixed with abstract reflection, and Rima Pociūtė reads in it the collective unconscious of a village community.
Who it is for
A long novel, whose second part proceeds by repetitions and meditations rather than by plot; no French or English translation has been found.
Prizes and reception
Žemaitė Prize in 1980 for the first part; regarded as the first major breakthrough of modern prose in the Soviet era.
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