Beschreibung
'Dr. Laima Vince Sruoginis, an established author, academic, and life-long part of the North American Lithuanian diaspora, courageously faces Lithuanias difficult historical legacy in her ground-breaking book. She researched her communitys refugee ancestors, drawing both from personal interviews and dusty academic sources, confronting uncomfortable truths.' (Philip S. Shapiro, President, Remembering Litvaks, Inc.) As World War II ended, refugees fled Soviet-occupied Lithuania, finding shelter in the displaced persons camps of Europe. By 1949, most had emigrated to North America. They brought with them opposing narratives about the Nazi occupation (1941-1944) when 95 percent of Lithuanias Jewish community was annihilated. Trauma narratives were passed down to the second and third generations through collective memory. Through postmemory, cultural memory, and trauma theory, Vanished Lands analyzes literary works by North American Jewish and Lithuanian writers who speak over the silence of decades, seeking answers.
Autorenportrait
Dr. Laima Vince Sruoginis earned a PhD in Humanities from Vilnius University, an MFA in Writing from Columbia University, an MFA in Nonfiction from the University of New Hampshire, and a BA in English and German Literature from Rutgers University. She is the recipient of two Fulbright grants, a National Endowment for the Arts grant in Literature, a PEN Translation Fund grant, an Academy of American Poets Award, and Association of the Advancement of Baltic Studies book and dissertation awards, among other honors. Writing under the name Laima Vince, she has published over twenty books in the United States, Europe, and the United Kingdom. She teaches in the English Department at the University of Southern Maine.
