Category: Fair guests

ANNA AUZŅA (b. 1975) – writer, poet, literary scholar, winner of the Klāvs Elsbergs Prize (1995), the Oliveret Prize (2008), two Ojāras Vācietis Prizes (2011, 2017) and others.

“Habitat” (Mājoklis; 2021) is her prose debut. A diptych of performances was based on at the Art Theatre in Riga (directed by Laura Groza). At the beginning of 2022, the Latvian PEN Club published its own list of the most significant books published in Latvia in 2021 – “Habitat” was listed first.

The novel “Dwelling” is written in the form of a diary, tells the story of a young woman’s becoming, sexuality, and her relationship with God (it is no coincidence that the motto of the work is “Glorify God in your body”). Terezė’s diary entries cover the years 2008-2020, but they also tell a lot about her childhood, adolescence and youth – the 1980s and 1990s. It is like an encyclopaedia of women’s sexuality, composed of fragments. The poet Arvis Vigulas, editor of the novel, said it precisely: “In this book, sexuality is not a taboo, nor is it the subject of erotica or pornography, but rather an important life experience that society, including literature, is not very good at talking about.”

The novel became the literary event of 2021 in Latvia. Novels written by poets are usually distinguished by their language, various rhythmic tricks; they often disregard the established order, try to find innovative means of expression, narrative strategies; and seemingly familiar plots are developed as if experimenting.

Anne König, born in 1971, lives and works as an author, publisher and part of the management team of the publishing house “Spector Books” in Leipzig. Her work focuses on research projects and interventions in public space, in which she negotiates changes in the acoustic environment, the social impact of urban development, self-organized forms of production and reflections on trends in current architectural practice and contemporary art.

Anastasiia Leonova is a publisher, art manager, curator, and co-founder of IST Publishing based in Ukraine. Between 2014–20, she ran an independent art gallery in Kharkiv focused on contemporary art. With a background in Sociology and Art History, she specializes in photography and photobooks. Leonova is the curator of Mystetska Biblioteka, a project promoting contemporary artistic editions, and runs The Naked Books, a Kyiv-based shop dedicated to artistic books. She founded BOOK CHAMPIONS WEEKEND, a festival for photobook publishers, in 2021.

Arvis Viguls (1987, Jēkabpils, Latvia) is author of four critically acclaimed poetry collections and a book of short prose, he is also a translator from English, Spanish, and South Slavic languages, as well as an editor at the literary magazine Strāva. He has received Latvian Annual Literature Prize for best debut (2009) and best translation (2022) among other awards. In 2017, international literary project Literary Europe Live selected him as one of ten New Voices from Europe, and in 2023 he was shortlisted for European Poet of Freedom Award 2024, an international literary prize organized by city of Gdańsk, for his latest poetry collection “Blusu cirks” (Flea Circus, 2021; 2024 in Polish translation). His work has been translated and published in more than 20 languages including books of poems in Croatian, English, German, Polish, and Spanish.

Rein Raud (b. 1961)
One of the most renowned contemporary Estonian writers and public intellectuals, cultural theorist, and translator. Debuting as a poet in 1981, he is now the author of eleven novels, five poetry collections, and numerous scholarly books and articles, with international recognition. He has translated countless texts from Japanese, Italian, Lithuanian, English, and German. His books have been honored with the highest Estonian literary awards and have been translated into thirteen languages. In 2024, his novel „Maro traukinys“ received the Baltic Assembly Literature Award.
Laureate of the Estonian National Award (2022).

„Tobulo sakinio mirtis“ / „Death of the Perfect Sentence“ (the book will be presented at the Vilnius Book fair) – is already Reino Raud’s fourth novel published in Lithuanian.

J. C. Todd (1943, New York, USA) is author of six books of poetry, including Beyond Repair, a special selection for the Able Muse Poetry Book Award, and a bilingual (English-Lithuanian) collection, What Kept Me Awake?/Kas neleido užmigti. She is a co-editor of the ground-breaking anthology Convergence: Poetry on Environmental Impacts of War, forthcoming in the USA in Fall, 2025, and editor of on-line anthologies of English translations of Lithuanian poems (Contemporary Lithuanian Poetry in Translation 2002) and Latvian poems (To Be The Root 2005), both published in The Drunken Boat, Issues 2.4; 5.4. Her fellowships in poetry include Bemis Center (2016), the Pew Center for Arts & Heritage (2014), and the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts (1998) and her awards include those from the National Poetry Society of the UK (2022), the International Writing Center of Salem College (USA 2016), and the Poetry Society of America (shortlisted 2015, 2007). Her poems have appeared widely in U.S. anthologies and journals, including The American Poetry Review and The Paris Review and have been translated and published in Lithuanian, Italian, and Bosnian.

Į šių metų Vilniaus knygų mugę atvyksta didžiausio Lenkijos dienraščio „Gazeta Wyborcza“ vyriausiasis redaktorius, istorikas, eseistas, politikos publicistas – Adamas Michnikas.

Vasario 28 d. 17 val. kviečiame į 15 MIN Forumą, kur vyks Adamo Michniko rinktinės „Chamai ir angelai“ pristatymas. Dalyvaus autorius, knygos sudarytojas Rimvydas Valatka ir istorikas Alvydas Nikžentaitis.

„Chamai ir angelai“ – tekstai apie demokratiją, politiką, istoriją ir moralę, kurie atliepia ir šiandienos aktualijas. Tai knyga apie vertybes, idėjų kovą ir istorines pamokas.

Nepraleisk susitikimo su Adamu Michniku Vilniaus knygų mugėje.

Kateryna Michalicyna – Ukrainian writer, translator, editor, and member of PEN Ukraine. She will present the project Young City Readings, carried out by the literary cities of Vilnius and Lviv.

The author has written more than twenty children’s books, for which she has received awards, as well as several poetry collections. Her poems have been translated into Polish, German, Swedish, Armenian, English, Lithuanian, and other languages. In 2023, her children’s book What Grows in the Garden was published in Lithuanian (illustrated by Oksana Bula, translated by Vytas Dekšnys, and published by Žalias kalnas).

Additionally, Kateryna has translated into Ukrainian works by J. R. R. Tolkien, Oscar Wilde, Ernest Hemingway, Henry Marsh, Judith Kerr, as well as the book Akmenėlis by Marius Marcinkevičius and Inga Dagilė.

Don’t miss the opportunity to meet Kateryna Michalicyna at the Vilnius Book Fair!

By the way, just before the Vilnius Book Fair, on February 26, we invite you to visit the Vilnius House of Literature, where Kateryna will open an exhibition of works by the late Ukrainian soldier and photojournalist Roman Chornomaz, which she curated.

Jeļena Glazova is a poet and an artist from Riga, Latvia. She is the author of 4 collections of poems – Transfers (2013), Plasma (2014), Greed (2019) and Naivete (2021). Jelena is a co-founder and a curator of The Blood of a Poet international poetry festival (2014 – 2016, Riga, Latvia) and a co-founder of “Poetry without borders” trilingual poetry festival (2017 – 2022, Riga, Latvia). Jelena executed 200 performances in 16 countries since 2012. Her poetry is translated into 9 languages.

More information at www.jelena-glazova.com

Anete Melece (born 1983) is a Latvian author, illustrator, and animation filmmaker living with her family in Zürich, Switzerland. Her animated short films have been recognized at numerous international festivals. Her picture book The Kiosk (2019, Liels un mazs, LV), based on one of her films, has been translated into more than 20 languages. Anete’s work is known for its witty details, charming characters, and heartfelt storytelling.