In March, the “A Room Without Quotation Marks” residency, located in Pamėnkalnio Villa, hosted its first resident: poet, essayist, and literary translator Kristina Tamulevičiūtė. The author concludes her month-long creative stay with an impressive list of accomplishments and a new tradition for the villa’s future guests.
Kristina Tamulevičiūtė is an active participant in the Lithuanian literary field and a member of both the Lithuanian Writers’ Union and the Lithuanian Association of Literary Translators. Since 2013, she has published four books, which received favourable critical acclaim and were nominated for various literary awards.
An equally significant part of Tamulevičiūtė’s work is translation. She has translated approximately 30 books from English, Slovenian, Croatian, and Bosnian. For several consecutive years, her translated poetry collections have featured in the top-five lists of the year’s best books in the translated poetry category on the news portal 15min.lt.
Reflecting on her work during the residency, Kristina says:
“My residency at Pamėnkalnio Villa is coming to an end. It has been incredibly cosy and pleasant here. Upon opening the door, I was always greeted by the unique, authentic scent of the building; the small but charming room was constantly flooded with sunlight, and during breaks, Tomas Petrulis would treat me to coffee. I truly felt at home here.
Over the course of the month at the villa, I achieved a great deal:
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I finished translating the novel Warriors: Code of Honour (Drąsos klanai. Garbės kodeksas) for teenagers, to be published by Debesų ganyklos. Teen literature is my new passion, and this project contributed significantly to that;
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I began translating the novel The Wolf King (Vilkų karalius) for the Alma littera publishing house. My ‘dark soul’ is immensely enjoying this project;
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I translated poems by Marija Dejanović for the Poetic Druskininkai Fall festival almanac;
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I prepared Marija’s long poem The Throat for publication, as there is a profound lack of long-form poems in our press;
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The magazine Nemunas accepted Aleš Šteger’s novella Daedalus, which I translated during the residency; Aleš himself will be visiting Lithuania in May;
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I wrote two short stories for my upcoming book for teenagers, The Witch of Šiauliai and Other Stories (Šiaulių ragana ir kitos istorijos), to be published by Slinktys (partially funded by Šiauliai City Municipality, with consultations from the Šiauliai Tourism Information Centre);
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I translated poems by Slovenian poets Katja Gorečan, Maja Vidmar, Anja Pepelnik, Ana Golob, and Taja Kramberger, and prepared a separate publication;
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Together with Lina Buividavičiūtė, we organised an intimate discussion and reading session, where we discussed the characteristics of contemporary Slovenian and Lithuanian women’s poetry and introduced some of our most important and beloved authors.
While at the residency, I did not manage to sit down to work on my new poetry book, tentatively titled Years (Metai), but I have no regrets – it is simply not yet the right time for that book. However, I am delighted that I succeeded in creating my own texts, translating from various languages, and taking on diverse projects. My daily routine included both commercial and non-commercial literature, prose and poetry, meetings and conversations, sunshine and a wonderful time.
Today, at Pamėnkalnio Villa, in ‘A Room Without Quotation Marks’, I am leaving a copy of my book Home (Namai). I believe the title is very symbolic. I hope to start a new tradition – for every artist creating here to leave a book behind. This way, the shelf will never be empty, just like in a real home.
My thanks go to Pamėnkalnis Villa and the ‘Vilnius UNESCO City of Literature’ team for their trust and for such an opportunity to create.”