Sk ma:Apokalyptische Variationen

Antanas Skema (1910-1961) was born in the Polish city of Lodz, which was then part of the Russian Empire. At the beginning of World War I, the family fled to the Russian hinterland. Skema experienced a traumatic childhood, first in Voronezh and then during the Russian Revolution in Ukraine. In 1921, the family returned to the now independent Lithuania. In 1929, Skema began studying medicine in Kaunas, later switching to law. From 1935 onwards, he increasingly devoted himself to theater, working as an actor and director at the State Theater in Vilnius. In 1944, he fled from the Soviet occupation to Germany, where he lived for several years in displaced persons camps. In 1947, Skema published a collection of short stories and began writing his first plays. In 1949, he emigrated to the United States, where he earned a living as a factory worker and elevator operator. In Lithuanian exile circles, he became involved in theater, wrote contributions for the émigré press, and published two more collections of novellas, essays, poems, and his only novel, "The White Sheet." Due to his existential themes, Skema has been referred to as the "Lithuanian Camus." He died in a car accident in Pennsylvania in 1961.

Claudia Sinnig, born in 1965, grew up in Gotha. She studied Russian and English in Leipzig and Lithuanian in Vilnius. In 1989, she co-founded the Lithuanian Review, the first uncensored English newspaper in Lithuania, and in 1990, she worked for the first freely elected Lithuanian Parliament. Since 1992, she has been a freelance author and translator. She has translated works by Tomas Venclova, Jonas Mekas, Eugenijus Alisanka, Sigitas Parulskis, and Antanas Skema, among others. Claudia Sinnig lives in Wuhden in the Oderbruch region.