Judita Vaičiūnaitė

Judita Vaičiūnaitė died in Vilnius in 2001. A 2010 posthumous collection of selections from her work, Kristalas: Poezijos Rinktinė, was published by the Lithuanian Writers' Union. In 2018, a collection of her work in English translation was published as Vagabond Sun: Selected Poems.

In 1996, she was awarded the Baltic Assembly Prize for Literature, the Arts and Science for her collection Žemynos vainikai ("Wreaths of Zemyna"). That year, she published the memoir Vaikystės veidrody, a series of essays about her own life. She was issued the Order of the Lithuanian Grand Duke Gediminas in 1997, and the Lithuanian Writers' Union Prize in 2000.

Vaičiūnaitė worked as an editor for several literary journals in Lithuania. She also completed translations of other poets into Lithuanian, notably the work of Anna Akhmatova. In 1978, she was named the laureate of the Lithuanian Poetry Spring [lt] festival.

Vaičiūnaitė's first poetry collection, Pavasario akvarelės ("Spring Watercolors"), was published in 1960. She went on to publish new collections frequently, producing more than 20 books of poetry. She also wrote fairy tales and poems for children.

After World War II, she moved to Vilnius with her family. There, she studied at Vilnius University, graduating in 1959. Vaičiūnaitė would live in Vilnus for the rest of her life, making the city a central subject of her work.

Judita Vaičiūnaitė (July 12, 1937 – February 11, 2001) was a Lithuanian writer. Best known for her poetic exploration of urban settings and mythological women, she is one of Lithuania's most famous 20th-century poets.

Judita Vaičiūnaitė was born in 1937 in Kaunas, Lithuania. Her father was a professor of psychiatry, and her mother was a nurse. She was particularly close with her sister Dalia.