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Reunion with my mother

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My career as a writer
Tomas Venclova Poet
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And I've now been lecturing as a full professor probably for about 20 years and am about to retire – autumn will be my last semester teaching. Well, over that time I've built up some sort of pension so that we probably won't die of hunger when I retire. Well, and what else should I talk about? I said that I spent a lot of time and effort and money on travel. I've published a lot of books. When Lithuania achieved its independence, I began publishing my books in Lithuania. Nowadays my poems, my essays are being published in Lithuania. But not only that, my poems have been translated into at least 20 languages. Essays as well, for example in Polish, probably at least about 10 books, four books in Hungarian, recently in Budapest we had a look to see how many there were. A book of mine is about to come out in Chinese. At least about six or seven books have come out in English. I wrote a thick scholarly study on the Polish poet Aleksander Wat who was a political refugee, a political prisoner, then a political refugee. He lived in Paris, he died in Paris – he's a well know Polish literary figure. I wrote a monograph on him in English which was published by Yale University Press. And it's read in the world of academia, it's well known. I've written in many American journals – The New York Review of Books, New Republic – in short, not just as an academic but also as a writer I feel that I've managed to achieve, as it were, certain things which I wouldn't have achieved if I had remained in Lithuania. I believe that my decision to emigrate was the right one. I'm now 73, it's time, so to speak, to weigh up my life. I believe that the overall balance – summa summarum, as the Latin saying goes – that that balance is on the positive side… when I left I thought that it was possible that I'd end up as a lorry driver, for example, or a cleaner or a road layer. But that didn't happen, I'd been a philologist and a writer and I remained a philologist and a writer, known not just in Lithuania but also outside of Lithuania.

Ir šiuo metu aš jau dėstau kaip pilnas profesorius jau apie turbūt dvidešimt metų ir jau išeinu į pensiją, jau rudenį man bus paskutinysis dėstymo semestras. Na, per tą laiką šiokį tokį pensijos fondą susidariau, taip kad turbūt badu nemirsime, ir tada kai išeisiu į pensiją.

Na, ir ką gi dar papasakoti, sakiau, kad daug laiko ir jėgų, ir lėšų išleidau kelionėms. Išleidau daug knygų. Kada Lietuva išsivadavo, pradėjau leisti knygas Lietuvoje. Dabar mano eilėraščiai, mano eseistika yra spausdinama Lietuvoje. Bet ne tik, mano eilėraščių yra išversta į mažiausiai dvidešimt kalbų, ir daugeliu kalbų yra išėję rinkiniai. Eseistikos taip pat, sakysime lenkiškai, turbūt mažiausiai kokį dešimts knygų, vengriškai keturios knygos, neseniai Budapešte mes žiūrėjome kiek ten mano yra. Dabar išeis kiniškai knyga. Yra angliškai išėję mažiausiai kokios šešios ar septynios knygos. Parašiau storą mokslinę studiją apie lenkų poetą Aleksandrą Vatą, kuris buvo politinis pabėgėlis, politinis kalinys, paskui politinis pabėgėlis. Gyveno Paryžiuj, mirė Paryžiuje – žinoma lenkų literatūros figūra. Aš apie jį parašiau anglišką monografiją, kuri buvo išleista Jeilo leidyklos, "Yale University Press". Ir taip jau, akademiniam pasauly skaitoma, žinoma. Bendradarbiavau daugely Amerikiečių žurnalų: "New York Review of Books", "New Republic". Žodžiu sakant, ne tik kaip mokslininkas, bet ir kaip ir rašytojas, laikau, kad man pavyko pasiekti tam tikrų, taip sakant, dalykų, kurių nebūčiau pasiekęs jeigu būčiau likęs Lietuvoje. Manau, kad mano emigracija buvo teisingas sprendimas. Dabar jau septyms treji metai, jau laikas, taip sakant, suvesti gyvenimo balansą, manau, kad bendrąja suma, suma sumarum, kaip sakoma lotyniškai, tas balansas yra teigiamas, kad, taip sakant, išvažiuodamas maniau, kad galimas daiktas, kad būsiu sunkvežimio vairuotojas, pavyzdžiui, arba valytojas, arba gatvių grindikas. Bet to neįvyko, kaip buvau filologas ir rašytojas taip ir likau filologas ir rašytojas, žinomas ne tik Lietuvoje, bet ir už Lietuvos ribų.

Born in 1937, Tomas Venclova is a Lithuanian scholar, poet, author and translator of literature. He was educated at Vilnius University and later at Tartu University. As an active participant in the dissident movement he was deprived of Soviet citizenship in 1977 and had to emigrate. Between 1977 and 1980 he lectured at University of California, Berkeley, where he became friends with the Polish poet Czesław Miłosz, who was a professor of Slavic Languages and Literature at the school, as well as the Russian poet Joseph Brodsky. He is currently a full professor at Yale University.

Listeners: Andrzej Wolski

Film director and documentary maker, Andrzej Wolski has made around 40 films since 1982 for French television, the BBC, TVP and other TV networks. He specializes in portraits and in historical films. Films that he has directed or written the screenplay for include Kultura, which he co-directed with Agnieszka Holland, and KOR which presents the history of the Worker’s Defence Committee as told by its members. Andrzej Wolski has received many awards for his work, including the UNESCO Grand Prix at the Festival du Film d’Art.

Tags: The New York Review of Books, New Republic, Lithuania, Aleksander Wat

Duration: 2 minutes, 47 seconds

Date story recorded: May/June 2011

Date story went live: 20 March 2012