Tomas Venclova
Tomas Venclova (born 11 September 1937) is a Lithuanian poet, prose writer, scholar, philologist and translator of literature. He is one of the five founding members of the Lithuanian Helsinki Group. In 1977, following his dissident activities, he was forced to emigrate and was deprived of his Soviet citizenship. Since 1980, he has taught Russian and Polish literature at Yale University. Considered a major figure in world literature, he has received many awards, including the Prize of Two Nations (received jointly with Czesław Miłosz), and The Person of Tolerance of the Year Award from the Sugihara Foundation, among  other honors. Life. Tomas Venclova was born in Klaipėda in 1937. His father, Antanas, was a poet and Soviet politician. Tomas was educated at Vilnius University. He was one of the five founding members of the Lithuanian Helsinki Group, and took part in Lithuanian and Russian dissident movements. He became friends with poets Anna Akhmatova and Boris Pasternak, as well as Natalya Gorbanevskaya and Joseph Brodsky. In Vilnius, he translated Baudelaire, T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Robert Frost, Osip Mandelstam, Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak, and other authors into Lithuanian. In Lithuania he was forbidden to publish his own work, except in  samizdat, although one volume appeared in 1972, entitled "A Sign of Speech". In 1977, following his dissident activities, he was forced to emigrate. He was invited by Czesław Miłosz to teach at the University of California at Berkeley. He did not return to Lithuania until its independence in 1991. Since 1980, he has taught Russian and Polish literature at Yale University. He has published over twenty books including volumes of poetry, literary criticism, political commentary, literary biography, translation and books on Vilnius. His work has been translated into many languages including by Czesław Miłosz into Polish, and by Joseph Brodsky  into Russian. He is active in the contemporary cultural life of Lithuania, and is one of its most well-respected figures. He lives in New Haven (Connecticut, United States), in the past also temporarily in Vilnius and Kraków. Selected bibliography. Books written in Lithuanian Books written in Russian Books written in English Books in English translation Books in German translation Books in Russian translation Books in Swedish translation Books in Polish translation Books in Hungarian Translation Books in Finnish translation Books in Italian translation Books in Chinese translation Books in Portuguese translation Books in Slovenian translation Books in Albanian translation