A panel discussion on "The Role of Memory in Eastern and Western European Literature" at the Vilnius Town Hall.

Three Nobel prize-winning writers plus an eminent man of letters took part in a panel discussion on "The Role of Memory in Eastern and Western European Literature" at the Vilnius Town Hall on Oct 2. Several hundred students, academics and lovers of literature crowded the large hall, some arriving well in advance of the 5 p.m. start, to see this historic event. The three Nobel laureates were Wislawa Szymborska (1996), Czeslaw Milosz (1980) and Gunter Grass (1999). Szymborska, from Krakow, Poland is an internationally recognized poet. Czeslaw Milosz, now 89, is a Lithuanian poet who writes in Polish. For many years he was a professor of Slavic literature in the United States and now divides his time between Krakow and Berkeley, California. Grass, of course, is best known for his novel The Tin Drum, that was made into a controversial film by Volker Schlorndorff. The fourth participant, Tomas Venclova, although not a Nobel prize winner, is no literary slouch. Born in Lithuania in 1937, he was one of Lithuania's literary lights until a 1979 open letter to Lithuania's Communist Party earned him a one-way ticket out of the Soviet Union. He is presently a professor of Russian literature at Yale University and has been published in leading international literary publications. Grass, Milosz and Venclova all read from prepared texts at the opening of the session while Szymborska preferred to join in the pursuing discussion. The writers were invited to discuss the role that memories play in literature, with an emphasis on their own personal experiences. "(For an author), memory is equally a treasure trove, a junkyard and archive," said Grass, a German who grew up in Gdansk when it was still known as Danzig and fled the city during World War II.