Jurgis Kunčinas (13 January 1947 in

Alytus Alytus () is a city with Town privileges, municipal rights in southern Lithuania. It is the List of cities in Lithuania, sixth-largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, 14th-largest city in the Baltic ...

Lithuania Lithuania, officially the Republic of Lithuania, is a country in the Baltic region of Europe. It is one of three Baltic states and lies on the eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, bordered by Latvia to the north, Belarus to the east and south, P ...

– 13 December 2002) was a poet, novelist, translator and essayist. He has been described as the chronicler of Soviet bohemianism, who poeticized the individual's internal autonomy as an alternative to the absurdity of social life. His works, originally published in the

Lithuanian language Lithuanian (, ) is an East Baltic languages, East Baltic language belonging to the Baltic languages, Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is the language of Lithuanians and the official language of Lithuania as well as one of t ...

, have been translated into English, German, Russian, Estonian, Belarusian, Swedish, and Polish. Kunčinas received the Lithuanian Writers Union' prize in 1994 for the novel ''Tūla'', set largely in

Vilnius Vilnius ( , ) is the capital of and List of cities in Lithuania#Cities, largest city in Lithuania and the List of cities in the Baltic states by population, most-populous city in the Baltic states. The city's estimated January 2025 population w ...

Užupis Užupis (, , , ) is a neighborhood in Vilnius, the capital of Lithuania, largely located in Vilnius's old town, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Užupis means "beyond the river" or "the other side of the river" in the Lithuanian language and r ...

district. His 1996 compilation of essays, ''Laba diena, pone Enrike!'', received an award from the city of Vilnius. The public library in his hometown Alytus has been renamed after him and holds a biennial literary festival in his memory.

Selected bibliography

* Takas per girią (1977) (poetry) * Atidėtas rugsėjis (1984) (poetry) * Atgimimo kryžius (1990) (poetry) * Namai be žiburių (1991) (poetry) * Vaizdas į mėnulį (1989) (essays) * Baltųjų sūrių naktis (1995) (essays) * Laba diena, pone Enrike! (1996) (essays) * Glisono kilpa (1991) (novel) * Tūla (1993) (novel); translated into English as ''Tūla'', Flossmoor, IL: Pica Pica Press, 2016.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Kuncinas, Jurgis 1947 births 2002 deaths Burials at Antakalnis Cemetery 20th-century Lithuanian essayists 20th-century Lithuanian novelists 20th-century Lithuanian poets Lithuanian male essayists Lithuanian male novelists Lithuanian male poets People from Alytus