Set in the Stalinist era, when Lithuaniais farmers lost everything n their villages, their land, and even their way of life n to the process of collectivisation, this book documents the life of the village idiot/anarchistic trickster Kukutis. Incapable of understanding or following the laws and rules of the totalitarian regime, and knowing nothing of strictures or borders, he says and does what he likes, thus becoming a potent symbol of freedom until the downfall of communism in Lithuania. Together these poems form a black comic riposte to the horrors of occupation and totalitarian rule.

"It is of the essence of the trickster that he is playful and seems to be talking - whispering, acting - about something else, and that this something else has an innocence about it, a lack of central concern. No politics here! It worked, we are told; of the few books that got through the layers of official censorship, this one - or in its separate publications - did."
Stride

"To describe these poems as ballads is not to say they are written in regular verse or have recourse to narrative structures punctuated by refrains, but they nonetheless penetrated the consciousness of the people of Lithuania to the extent that they were chanted by crowds demonstrating as the Soviet grip on the country was released. Kukutis is clearly of those characters who escape from their creator and belong to all."
The Warwick Review

Marcelijus Martinaitis, author of fifteen collections of poetry and five collections of essays, was born in 1936 in western Lithuania. After an education disrupted by first Soviet then Nazi occupation, he graduated from Vilnius University and worked as a journalist, editor and university tutor until he retired in 2002. In 1998 he received the Lithuanian National Award in Literature, the highest honour bestowed upon a Lithuanian writer. During the late 80s and early 90s, he actively participated in Lithuaniais struggle to regain its independence from the Soviet Union.

Laima Vince is a graduate in Creative Writing from Columbia University. Her other translations include Martinaitisis poetry collection K.B. The Suspect (2009).

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About the Author
MARCELIJUS MARTINAITIS (poet) is the author of fifteen collections of poetry, five collections of essays and a series of three memoirs. In 1998 he was the recipient of the Lithuanian National Award in Literature, the highest honour bestowed upon a Lithuanian writer. Martinaitis was born in 1936 in the village of Paserbentis in geographically and culturally isolated Western Lithuania. He graduated from Vilnius University in 1964 with a degree in Lithuanian Literature. For more than a decade, he worked as a journalist and editor. From 1980 onwards he taught ethnography, literature, and poetry workshops at Vilnius University. He retired in 2002. Martinaitis's work has been translated into English, Estonian, French, Norwegian, Russian, Swedish, and Ukrainian. In addition to his work as a poet, essayist, and educator, Martinaitis is highly respected in Lithuania as a social activist and one of the first members of the Lithuanian grassroots political movement SA'judis. During the late eighties and early nineties, Martinaitis actively participated in Lithuania's struggle to regain independence from the Soviet Union. In 1989 he was elected into the Supreme Soviet and travelled to Moscow to argue Lithuania's cause as part of SA'judis's strategy to work within the Soviet system of governance towards the goal of declaring Lithuania's sovereignty. LAIMA VINCE (translator) is a graduate of Columbia University, School of the Arts MFA program in Creative Writing. She is a recipient of a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship, two Fulbright lectureships, a PEN Translation grant, and an Academy of American Poets award, among other honours. Her memoir in diary form of her student years at Vilnius University in 1988-1989 during the time of Lithuania's singing revolution was published in 2008 by the Lithuanian Writers' Union Publishers as Lenin's Head on a Platter. Her novel for children, 'The Ghost in Hannah's Parlour', was translated into Lithuanian and was selected by Lithuanian Radio and Television as one of the top five books published for children in 2007. Laima Vince is the translator of Marcelijus Martinaitis's collection 'K.B. The Suspect', published by White Pines Press. She is also the translator of Juozas Luksa's 'Forest Brothers '(Central European University Press), an account of Lithuania's post-war armed resistance against the Soviet Union. Writing under the name Laima Sruoginis, she is the editor and translator of three anthologies of contemporary 'Lithuanian literature: The Earth Remains' (Columbia University Press), 'Lithuania in Her Own Words' (Tyto Alba), and 'Raw Amber' (Poetry Salzburg). Laima Sruoginis is also the translator of 'My Voice Betrays Me' (Vanda Juknaite, Columbia University Press), 'Just One Moment More' (Columbia University Press), and 'Letters from Nowhere' (Jonas Mekas, Paris Experimental). Laima Vince has published her poems in 'Poetry Daily', 'The Artful Dodge', 'Agni' and other journals. She also writes as a journalist on contemporary social issues in Lithuania.


Book Information
ISBN 9781906570262
Author Marcelijus Martinaitis
Format Paperback
Page Count 160
Imprint Arc Publications
Publisher Arc Publications
Weight(grams) 220g
Dimensions(mm) 216mm * 138mm * 11mm