The publication of books written by german - writing authors in 2000-2005 in lithuania

The subject-matter of this Master’s paper is The Publication of Books Written by German-writing Authors in 2000-2005 in Lithuania. The paper deals with the translations of fiction literature created in the German language and published in Lithuania within the years 2000-2005. The fiction works created by German, Austrian, and Swiss authors are attributed to the group of German-written literature. The earlier-mention period has been chosen in order to find out the tendencies in the publishing business in Lithuania during the first years of the 21st century with a special attention given to the German-written literature. Also, up to now the main attention has been paid to the general publishing situation in Lithuania ignoring the country of origin of an author. In particular, the Lithuanian publications of fiction works in translation have not been analyzed in detail. The aim of this paper is to explore the variety of German-written fiction books published in Lithuania in the years 2000-2005 and to look deeper into the peculiarities of publication work. The methods of analysis and synthesis have been used for the purpose of the research. The method of analyses employed to process data about the variety of German-written books published in 2000-2005. The sources for the data were the yearly statistical chronicle The Lithuanian Publishing Statistics published by The Centre of the Bibliography and Book Science under Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania and the Lithuanian Integrated Library Information System Union Catalogue. The method of synthesis employed to summarize the available data about the publication of German-written books and its tendencies in Lithuania. With the aim to identify the funds financing the translation of the German-written fiction books into Lithuanian and their publication, the publishing houses of Lithuania have been questioned. For the attainment of the objectives, documents in the Lithuanian and foreign languages, encyclopedias, reference books, and scientific articles have been used. The results received after the analysis of collected data show that the number of publications of German-written books in translation is constantly growing. Contemporary German-written books for adults and children constitute the majority of published books. The authors of the beginning and middle of the 20th century prevail among the contemporary German-written literature. The latest German-written fiction literature is published in Lithuania. The popular fiction literature is published using the author’s own funds, and the publication of other German-written fiction literature is financed by such foreign funds as the Goethe Institute, Pro Helvetia, Culture 2000. Sometimes editions receive support from the institutions of the Republic of Lithuania. The German-written fiction literature constitutes the sixth part of all fiction literature in translation published in Lithuania. Based on volumes and prevailing editions tendencies, the German-written fiction literature meets the standards for the fiction literature published in Lithuania. In terms of literary form, the majority of German-written fiction books published during the above-mention period and intended for adults were novels and short stories for children. Editions of 1000-3000 are the most common. Poetry books are published in the smallest amounts, and the largest editions are those of books written by authors enjoying great popularity abroad and in Lithuania, as well as books highly valued by readers and reviewers. The prices of the German-written literature books do not differ from the prices generally set for fiction books published in Lithuania. Based on data for 2000-2005, the largest number of published literature works belongs to the authors of Germany, and the smallest part belongs to the authors of Switzerland