Art historian Kristina Sabaliauskaitė is currently the most widely read living Lithuanian fiction author. Her tetralogy of historical novels, Silva Rerum (2008–16), set in the period from 1659 to 1795, depicts a hundred and fifty years of Lithuanian history through the lives and events of four generations of a minor gentry family, the Narwoyszes.
The first volume of Silva Rerum was awarded the 2008 Jurga Ivanauskaitė award for the novel, listed as one of the twelve most creative books by the Lithuanian Literature Institute, and selected as Lithuania’s Book of the Year in 2009. The second volume was also elected Book of the Year, for 2009, and the third volume received the 2015 Liudas Dovydenas Literary Prize. Silva Rerum was listed as one of the Top Ten Books of the Decade by the Lithuanian PEN Club. Sabaliauskaitė was awarded the Saint Christopher award from the Municipality of Vilnius for reflections of Vilnius in literature, named Woman of the Year in Lithuania in 2015, and awarded the medal of the Order Pro Lituania for contributions to literature, culture, and society in 2017. Sabaliauskaitė has a PhD in art history and Baroque studies and worked for almost for a decade as a foreign correspondent in London.
