Wanted:

Birutė Mackonytė (Lithuania)

 

Will be inquired:

 

 

Personal file

Journalist and writer Birutė Mackonytė was born in 1928 in Vilnius to a family of intellectuals. Graduated from Vilnius University in 1951, where she had been majoring in English and literature. The author has worked in the Lithuanian media: the Radio, periodicals, as well as the Lithuanian Film Studio. Since 1986 Mackonytė has devoted herself to writing and other creative activities. She also dedicated a couple of years to publishing of her father’s, Rapolas Mackonis, literary works.

 

Literary works

Mackonytė became interested in legal and detective themes when she was working for the media. In 1967 – 1971, together with the investigator Borisas Škliaras, she published three collections of semi-documentary essays. She also produced two more similar publications on her own (in 1977 and 1982). Later on, the main character of Mackonytės detective novels, the private detective Romualdas Gailiušis, was inevitably born. So far there have been published five books featuring Gailiušis, and the sixth one, “A Covered Card” (“Užversta korta”) is due to be released in the nearest future.

 

The author has published the following detective novels:

“The Riddle of the Indispensable Man” (Reikalingo žmogaus mįslė), 1985

”The Black Fellow-traveler” (Juodas pakeleivis), 1988

”Last Year’s Snow” (Pernykštis sniegas), 1991

”Pale Salesmen” (Išblyškę pardavėjai), 1993

”The Game with Seven Watches” (Lošimas septyniais laikrodžiais), 1998

 

For the novel ”The Game with Seven Watches” the author was awarded the literary prize of the Ministry of Interior and the prize of ”The Amber Loop”, established by the publishing house ”Baltos lankos”. Mackonytė’s works have been translated into Russian.                                                                                                             

 

About the Wanted 

The author, who’s often referred to as Lithuania’s Agatha Christie, tells about the reasons for which she chose the crime genre: “I learned a lot of things about life when I worked as a journalist. I listened to lots of people’s life stories. One couldn’t publish things like that in those times, but all these stories, people’s destinies have stayed with me for ever”. According to Birutė Mackonytė “the impetus of a detective story is the fight between personalities, and the causes of crimes are eternal: honour, money, power, love”.

 

All the detective novels by Mackonytė are linked by two main characters: the charismatic and somewhat naive private detective Romualdas Gailiušis and the investigator Matas Valksna. We meet them in every novel, just as they travel throughout the most relevant issues of the time they live in (life style of the Soviet times and the beginning of the period of Lithuania’s independence, the lexis, specific attributes, etc.), and every new book again and again discloses their new features.