Tomas Venclova is a laureate of the Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award.

We are pleased to hear that Tomas Venclova was awarded the Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award. This prize has been presented since 2013 in the field of literature, especially poetry. It honors exceptional artistic and intellectual accomplishments related to the ideas represented by Zbigniew Herbert’s work.

As per a news release, Tomas Venclova is considered “the most remarkable living Lithuanian poet, who, in the times of USSR, as a dissident, was fighting for human rights in Lithuania,” and who “in his work opposes cruelty and injustice, not refraining from difficult topics, does not impose the answers, and encourages to the bravery of thinking.”

The ICC plans to publish his book, “The History of Lithuania for Everyone.”

Tomas Venclova was born in 1937 in Lithuania. He is the author of dozens of poems and essays and a renowned translator of Polish poetry to the Lithuanian language. His first volume of poetry was published in 1958. In 1977 moved to the USA as a dissident and co-founder of the Lithuanian Helsinki Group. There, he lectured Slavic literature at the Yale University. In 1983, he joined the editorial team of “Literary Notebooks,” where he published his poems and essays. He translated into Lithuanian works of Zbigniew Herbert, Cyprian Kamil Norwid, Czesław Miłosz, and Wisława Szymborska. Laureate of many prizes and awards. His poetry was translated into Polish by Czesław Miłosz, Stanisław Barańczak, Beata Kalęba, Alina Kuzborska, and Adam Pomorski.