Narrative
Balti praėjusios vasaros debesys
Not translated into English
Antanas Ramonas · 1991
Synopsis
The White Clouds of Last Summer: a vagabond with an artist's soul, independent of ideology and of career, lives free in a time that is not. He wanders the suburbs of Vilnius and the cafés of the old town, where he drinks mediocre coffee, walks along the courtyards, towers and lanes, and contemplates the city without demanding anything of life.
Context
The story appeared in 1991 in the journal Metai, in days of upheaval, then in volume the same year from Baltoji varnelė, but a fire destroyed most of the print run. Jūratė Sprindytė sees in it a clear document of its author's internal emigration, he who had chosen a free, non-conformist life on the margins of the Soviet regime; critics have read it as an ode to Vilnius and as one of the first texts of urban imagination in Lithuanian prose. The Lithuanian encyclopaedia ranks the author among the neorealists, attentive to precise detail.
Who it is for
A short, contemplative narrative, attentive to the details of the city; no French or English translation has been found.
Prizes and reception
Regarded by critics as the best prose work published in Lithuania in 1992, despite the loss of almost its entire print run.
Sources for this page 2
The pages consulted to check this page.