St. Jeronimo prizes – to translators Rimus Užgiris and Vyturis Jaručiis Culture

R. Užgiris St. The Jeronimo Prize is dedicated to artistic translations of contemporary and classical Lithuanian poetry, prose, dramaturgy into English and active and versatile dissemination of Lithuanian literature in the world.
R. Užgiris was born and raised in the USA in 1992. He received a bachelor’s degree in cultural anthropology from the University of California, and in 1999 Master of Philosophy from the University of Wisconsin.

This year’s award commission included Marius Burokas, Laimantas Jonušys, Nijolė Maskaliūnienė, Rūta Lazauskaitė and Gediminas Pulokas.

in 2005 graduated from the above-mentioned university with a doctorate in philosophy in 2011. The author received a master’s degree in creative writing from Rutgers-Newark University. R. Užgiris’s translations and poetry have been published by numerous literary publications in the USA, the United Kingdom and Lithuania.

The author has received a Fulbright scholarship and funding from the National Literary Translation Fund, won the “Poetry Spring” translator’s prize. Currently, he teaches literature, translation and creative writing at Vilnius University.

During the last decade, thanks to R. Užgiris, collections of poetry by Gintaras Grajauskas, M. Buroks, Aušra Kaziliūnaitė, Ilze Butkutė, Judita Vaičiūnaitė and Maironis were spoken and published in English, and a section of contemporary Lithuanian poetry was prepared and translated in the common poetry publication of the three Baltic countries “New Baltic Poetry”. (Parthian Books, 2018).

Many translations of poetry (and prose) have been published in the English-language literary magazine “Vilnius Review”, periodicals, and literary publications published in the USA, the United Kingdom, Ireland, and Lithuania. in 2019 his own book of poems “Tarp” was also published in Lithuanian, translated from English by M. Burokas, Dominykas Norkūnas and Edgaras Platelis.

V. Jarutis St. The Jeronimo Prize is awarded for professionally and equally successfully translated authors of Polish literature of different stylistics, for a sense of language and attention to words.

The laureate was chosen by commission members Laimantas Jonušys, Birutė Jonuskaitė-Augustinienė, Jonė Ramunytė, Dalia Kižlienė and Rūta Lazauskaitė.

One of the main works of V.Jarutis is the artistic translation of the historical novel “Jacob’s Book” by Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, with a huge volume (almost 800 pages), several dozen plot lines and numerous characters, which required great erudition, a special translator professionalism and craftsmanship.

V. Jarutis has translated six books by O. Tokarczuk, among other Polish authors – works by Jerzy Pilch, Wiesław Myśliwski, Czesław Miłosz. He translates prose, poetry, essays, dramas, film dialogues from the Polish language. in 2019 awarded the Golden Cross of the Republic of Poland.

The Ministry of Culture and the Lithuanian Literary Translators’ Union appoint St. The winners of the Jeronimo Prizes will be awarded on International Translators’ Day, September 30, in the White Hall of the Ministry of Culture.