Born in Germany of Lithuanian parents, who fled their home in 1944 to escape the Russian occupation, Delija Valiukenas emigrated with her family to the United States and settled in upstate New York. She earned her PhD in English literature from Brown University and has taught world literature for thirty-four years. Delija writes and translates for Baltic and Lithuanian journals, and was commissioned by the Lithuanian National Theatre of Kaunas to translate selected Lithuanian plays into English.