Tomas Venclova

Tomas Venclova
Venclova in Warsaw, 20 March 2007
Born	(1937-09-11) 11 September 1937 (age 79) Klaipėda, Lithuania
Occupation	philologist, essayist, writer, poet
Nationality	Lithuanian
Citizenship	Lithuanian American
Alma mater	Vilnius University
Notable awards	Lithuanian National Prize, Petrarca-Preis, Vilenica International Literary Prize

Tomas Venclova (born 11 September 1937, Klaipėda) is a Lithuanian poet, prose writer, scholar, philologist and translator of literature. He is one of the five founding members of the Lithuanian Helsinki Group. In 1977, following his dissident activities, he was forced to emigrate and was deprived of his Soviet citizenship. Since 1980 he has taught Russian and Polish literature at Yale University. Considered a major figure in world literature, he has received many awards, including the Prize of Two Nations (received jointly with Czesław Miłosz), and The Person of Tolerance of the Year Award from the Sugihara Foundation, among other honors.

Tomas Venclova was born in Klaipėda in 1937. His father, Antanas, was a poet and Soviet politician. Tomas was educated at Vilnius University. He was one of the five founding members of the Lithuanian Helsinki Group, and took part in Lithuanian and Russian dissident movements. He became friends with poets Anna Akhmatova and Boris Pasternak, as well as Natalya Gorbanevskaya and Joseph Brodsky. In Vilnius, he translated Baudelaire, T.S. Eliot, W.H. Auden, Robert Frost, Osip Mandelstam, Anna Akhmatova, Boris Pasternak, and other authors into Lithuanian. In Lithuania he was forbidden to publish his own work, except in samizdat, although one volume was appeared in 1972, entitled A Sign of Speech. In 1977, following his dissident activities, he was forced to emigrate.