"Aurimas Švedas has produced what can be called a historical document about one of the few transgenerational and transformative personalities of twentieth-century Lithuania, Irena Veisaitė. Life Should Be Transparent is neither a memoir nor a biography, portraying one of the most intriguing Germanists, theater critics, and pedagogues still alive.
In 13 sympathetic interviews, Švedas, the foremost historian of modern Lithuanian
culture, has provided a history of twentieth-century Lithuania from the point of view of a frightened young girl maturing through life into an old woman whose memories may soon fade. He gives the reader a remarkable insight into the different epochs she lived through, most notably her survival of the Holocaust and the Soviet
occupation.
Švedas and Veisaitė are kindred spirits seeking the meaning of life and a way to
authenticity."
Reviewed book:
