Jurga Ivanauskaitė was a Lithuanian writer, painter and playwright. Studying at the Vilnius Art Academy, her first book was The Year of the Lilies of the Valley, published in 1985. She subsequently published six novels, a children's book and a book of essays. Her works have been translated into several languages, including English, Latvian, Polish, Russian, German, and Swedish. After her visits in the Far East, she became an active supporter of the Tibet liberation movement. She died from the soft tissue sarcoma at the age of 45.