The Kaunas City Municipality awarded the Maironis Prize in Kaunas to one of the brightest creators of the young generation

Poet, literary scholar and doctor of philosophy Ieva Rudžianskaitė has been chosen as the laureate of this year’s Maironis Prize. This decision of the commission was approved by the Kaunas City Council that met this week. The author received a prestigious award for her poetry book “The Thirteenth Month”. At the same time, she will be announced as the laureate of the international festival “Spring of Poetry”.

The Maironis Prize, which has been around for more than a decade, is awarded to the best new book of poetry published in the previous calendar year. The writer who receives it immediately becomes the laureate of the international festival “Poetry Spring”. This title together with 3 thousand The euro bonus is awarded to the developer only once.

Ieva Rudžianskaite from Kaunas has earned such recognition for her fourth book of poetry, “The Thirteenth Month”. The work of the poetess, literary critic and doctor of philosophy reaped honorable laurels due to the openness of the verses, the variety of existential themes, deep philosophical insights and reflections on human relationships and emotions.

The prize, together with the city’s thanks to the author, will be presented during the 60th international festival “Poetry Spring”.

This award will add to I. Rudžianskaitė’s solid collection of evaluations so far. The author has already won the literary prize for the best debut in the literary almanac “Varpai”, the publication “Poetry and its reality”. She was also awarded the Zigmos Gėlė-Gaidamavičius prize for the poetry book “Kita” and the Antanas Miškinis literary prize for the book of poems “Iš gervių”.

This year, I. Rudžianskaitė was also awarded the One Litas Literary Prize initiated by Kaunas writers.

“The commission had a very big responsibility to evaluate and choose one laureate from nine applicants. However, the majority of votes determined that this time the honorable award was won by a woman from Kaunas, one of the brightest poets of the younger generation. Her work really did not leave anyone indifferent.

We are grateful to the representatives of the Kaunas branch of the Lithuanian Writers’ Union for their useful insights into the commission’s work, said Deputy Mayor of Kaunas Tomas Jarusevičius. – Each of the authors nominated for the Maironis Prize deserves great respect and sincere thanks. Their works are a new contribution to the country’s cultural life and the enrichment of our literature.”

8 more nominees were nominated for the Maironis prize this year: Vilius Dinstmanas for the book of poetry “Archangelas: I am real”, Diana Paklonskaitė for the book of poems “Flowers as dogs”, Albinas Galinis for the collection of poetry “Sunset”, Jonas Liniauskas for the book of poetry “Eyes of the Wind” . .

Last November, the Kaunas City Council updated the description of the procedure for awarding awards and bonuses. From now on, not only creative unions, artists’ associations, but also authors themselves, who have the status of an art creator, can nominate candidates for the Maironis prize. As a result, according to T. Jarusevičius, even greater competition is expected in the future, and the members of the commission will have a difficult puzzle in choosing the best one.

Information from the Public Relations Department