in 2007 in June, at the intersection of Mindaugas and J. Basanvičius streets, a new artistic accent was placed at the place of the large stone ball that stood there - a sculpture of a small boy with a big shoe in his hand depicting the nine-year-old Romana Kacevas from Vilnius, the world-famous French writer under the pseudonym Romain Gary. R. Gary was born on May 1914, 21 in Vilnius. The child's mother was an actress of Lithuanian origin, and his father, also a Lithuanian Jew, was a businessman. Before the future writer turned ten, the husband left the family for another woman and the son was raised by the only remaining mother. The writer's novel "European Education" (1945) was considered by Jean-Paul Sartre to be the best book about resistance. Romain Gary has written a total of 30 books.
The man won the prestigious Goncourt prize for the book "Root of Heaven". The Goncourt award is given to a writer once, but R.Gary is the only person who has received this award twice. After becoming a famous writer, the man did not want to fall into the trap of his own style and start repeating himself, so he started writing under the name of Emile Ajar (Emilius Ajar), his alleged nephew. Although there were those who, while the writer was still alive, explained that both prize winners were one and the same person, the vast majority, including literary critics, believed the writer's lie. One can only imagine Gary's guffaws as he read the comparisons between his books and those of his supposed nephew and claims that they were completely different styles and could not have been written by the same hand. "Everyone around is talking about how poor R.Gary is, how he must be jealous that his nephew became famous so quickly," said the creator even before admitting that E.Ajar is his pseudonym.
The sculpture embodies an episode of the writer's autobiographical novel "Dawn's Promise", when in order to prove his love for Valentina from the same yard, little Roman decided to eat even a rubber shoe (which he did). The writer said that when he was playing in the yard, his mother sometimes told him to go to the window and look up at her so that she could admire them. Therefore, in the sculpture in Vilnius, the boy has his head held high. The sculpture was created by the sculptor Romualdas Kvintas at the request of Romain Gary club president Romos Ramanauskas. This is the only monument to Romain Gary and an extremely rare monument to the childhood episode of any cultural figure, and it has already become a traditional meeting place in Vilnius.
Romenas Gari was also remembered last year in Vilnius, where he was the President of the Republic of Lithuania Gitanas Nauseda and First Lady Diana Nausėdienė received the first couple of France, President Emmanuel Macron and his spouse Brigitte Macron, who came to Lithuania for an official visit, and exchanged official gifts. The head of the country presented the President of France with a reduced version of the work "Boy with a Shoe" by the famous Lithuanian sculptor Romuald Kvintos.
Information prepared by: Valdas Selenis, VilniusGO.lt
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