"Danielius Dalba

& Other Stories", 2012

In this collection of short stories, which went straight to No.1 in bestselling lists,  the reality of contemporary life, language of mundane dialogues, urban slang intertwine with the precise episodes of the recent past. A schoolgirl's journey to an adulthood during World War II, a shadowy character providing drugs for foreign filmmakers on location, an anglophile pensioneer visiting her immigrant  daughter in London, a bored wife of a wealthy husband, a maid of the five star luxury hotel troubled by her past, an old Jewish billionaire returning to his childhood city, a KGB functionaire for more than fifty years wrestling with Vilnius, and, of course, the title character, Daniel Crowbar, a popular writer at the peak of his success restlessly looking for the peace of soul. All of the characters live interesting, but, at a glance, very mundane lives. However, the mundanity is deceiptful. All stories are interconnected in one way or another, and under the surface pulsating with black humour are stories of human vices, shattered illusions, reflections on creative principles and  irony of historical memory.

3 editions, ISBN 978-9955-23-625-2