Ieva Simonaitytė

Ieva Simonaitytė or Ewa Simoneit (23 January 1897 – 27 August 1978) was a Lithuanian writer. She represented the culture of Lithuania Minor and Klaipėda Region, territories of German East Prussia with large, but dwindling, Lithuanian population. She received critical acclaim for her novel Aukštujų Šimonių likimas (The Fate of Šimoniai from Aukštujai, 1935).

Simonaitytė was born in a small village of Vanagai (then Wannaggen in German East Prussia) in Klaipėda district. At the age of five, she became ill with tuberculosis, that affected her bones, and she had to walk with canes since then. Hailing from a poor peasant family and growing up without a father, she had to work since young age as a gooseherd or babysitter. Learning to read and write from her mother, Simonaitytė was largely self-taught. From 1912 to 1914 Simonaitytė received treatment for tuberculosis in Angerburg. She returned in better health and, influenced by World War I, began her literary career publishing poems and short stories in various Lithuanian periodicals of the Lithuania Minor. She earned a living working as a seamstress until 1921, when she moved to Klaipėda, where she completed of evening courses of typist and stenographers. Simonaitytė worked as a secretary and translator. To some extent she was involved in political life of the Klaipėda Region, participating in the Klaipėda Revolt of 1923, working for the local seimelis (parliament established to guarantee autonomy for the region), and testifying in Nazi trials in 1934.

Her big break came in 1935 with publication of Aukštujų Šimonių likimas. She received state literary award, a pension, and dedicated her remaining life to literature. After the 1939 German ultimatum to Lithuania, Klaipėda was attached to Nazi Germany and Simonaitytė moved to Kaunas and in 1963 to Vilnius. Simonaitytė bought a summer house in Priekulė near Klaipėda in 1961 and spent most of her summers there. The summer house was turned into her memorial museum in 1984. Simonaitytė died in Vilnius and was buried in the Writers' Hill of the Antakalnis Cemetery.

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