Whitehorn's Windmill

or the Unusual Events Once Upon a Time in the Land of Paudruvė

Kazys Boruta

Translated and with an Afterword by Elizabeth Novickas

Kazys Boruta, Lithuanian writer and poet (1905–1965)

Because of his political views, Kazys Boruta spent years in prison both before and after WWII. In the last phase of his life in Soviet Lithuania, he earned a living by translations published under a pseudonym.

Most of Whitehorn’s Windmill (Baltaragio malūnas) was written in 1942, during the German occupation. Bearing a lyrical style that gives full rein to the oral folktale tradition Lithuania is famous for, the novel is by turns romantic, farcical, fantastic, and tragic. The sense of spirituality that permeates the work reflects Lithuania’s pagan roots that were overlaid with an occasionally over-zealous Catholicism not so very long ago.

The story is about Whitehorn the miller’s efforts to find a match for his beautiful daughter, Jurga, against various calamities with and among suitors, neighbors, priests and other inhabitants of the village, and ultimately against the devil’s spell. The interesting plot made the novel popular as juvenile literature, too.

2010
284 pages
Paperback 978-963-9776-71-5 $17.95 T/ €13.95 / £11.99

Published in the series:
CEU Press Classics
ISSN 1418-0162