Belowed bench of Bitė Vilimaitė-Šukienė

Bitė Vilimaitė-Šukienė (16 February 1943 - 11 October 2014) - Lithuanian writer. A master of laconic work, concentrating a large amount of artistic information in a very small aesthetic form. Born in Lazdijai, B. Vilimaitė spent her childhood and adolescence in Kaunas, later lived and worked in Vilnius, and for the last four years of her life lived in the village of Avižieniai, Šlavantai municipality, Lazdijai district.

In 2003, she received the National Prize for Culture and Art for her collection "Papartynų saulė".

Defying the usual canons of the genre, Vilimaitė created a distinctive model of the short condensed novella, to which she remained faithful. Literary critics of the time called her "the most interesting, the most famous of our novelists" deservedly. One of the greatest strengths of Vilimaitė's work is to embody the Other and to tell the story through the lips of the Other, to be in the Other's shoes and to see the world through the eyes of the Other. There is no talk of special miracles or magicians. The greatest power - to create one's own life - is given to the human being. Literary critics have compared Vilimaitė's text to a road, where every pothole, pebble, warm strip of sand, and patch of grass is felt...

In 2021, a butterfly "landed" next to the Public Library of the Lazdijai District Municipality - a commemorative plaque (designed by Lazdijai sculptor Algis Kasparavičius) commemorating the memory of the novelist Bite Vilimaitė in her hometown - Lazdijai. After the writer's death, some manuscripts were discovered by her nephew Darius Vilimas, and, as the result of Lazdijai librarians' initiative, a separate book "The Face of Autumn. Black Days. Butterflies of the marshes" was published in 2021.