Lithuanians in the News
3rd June 2012
Book Launch of New Book “Australian Lithuanians”
The book launch of the long-awaited book “Australian Lithuanians” by Prof. Luda Apinytė-Popenhagen took place at the Sydney Lithuanian Club in Bankstown on May 27, 2012. This is the first book in the English language devoted to a comprehensive portrayal of Lithuanians in Australia, from the earliest days to the present. The book launch was organized by Friends of Sydney Lithuanian Club Library.
Luda Apinytė-Popenhagen talking about her book
After a short introduction by the President of the Australian Lithuanian Community of Sydney, Dr. Ramutis Zakarevičius, the circumstances of how the book came to be written were outlined by Algis Šimkus OAM, President of the Australian Lithuanian Foundation, which financed the book. The author then gave an interesting presentation on how she approached the writing of the book, the decisions she had to make about its structure and its direction and how she sourced the information. After an interesting question and answer session, the book launch concluded with an address by Lithuanian’s Honorary Consul in Sydney, Ginta Viliūnas.
Prof. Apinytė-Popenhagen is an Australian Lithuanian, who now resides in the USA and is an academic at California State University, Channel Islands Campus. Although most Australian Lithuanians arrived in Australia with the big post-war migration, the book describes many interesting and not well-known facts about the early history of Lithuanians in Australia. It was interesting to learn that there even were Lithuanians on the ships of the early Dutch explorers to the West coast of Australia!
After the Sydney book launch there was also a book launch in Canberra (May 29), to be followed by book launches in Melbourne (June 3) and Adelaide (June 10).