Vaiva Rykštaitė is a Lithuanian writer currently living in Hawaii. After finishing her master’s degree in philosophy in London, she worked as a yoga trainer and sold vintage clothing. Now Rykštaitė writes articles for lrt.lt, an online platform of the Lithuanian public broadcaster.

She has already written 5 novels and 1 children’s book. Rykštaitė’s prose is exceptionally vivid and candour. She talks openly and poetically about her own experiences and manages to create fiction out of it instead of just writing a memoir.

In all of her books Rykštaitė draws on her personal life and her newest novel Liza’s apartment is no exception. The novel portrays Kaunas at the end of the Soviet era and follows the city’s transition after the regained independence. The story is told through the eyes of a child. For a little girl, Kaunas is nothing but her house yard, charismatic neighbors, their children, and, most of all, her apartment. The apartment not only sets the scene but also becomes the core of the novel. Liza’s apartment is a provocative Bildungsroman: tracing political changes in Lithuania’s history, the novel depicts moral and psychological changes in the girl’s character.