Ričardas Gavelis

Ričardas Gavelis
Born8 November 1950
Vilnius, Lithuania
Died18 August 2002(2002-08-18) (aged 51)
Vilnius, Lithuania
Resting placeAntakalnis Cemetery
Occupation
EducationDruskininkai High School
Alma materVilnius University
PeriodEra of Stagnation, Perestroika, newly-independent Lithuania
GenresLiterary realism, psychology, surrealism, erotica, satire
SubjectsTotalitarianism, Lithuanian identity, psychology
Years active1976–2002
Notable worksVilnius Poker (1989)
Memoirs of a Young Man (1991)
SpouseNijolė Gavelienė (m. 1975)

Ričardas Gavelis (8 October 1950 – 18 August 2002) was a Lithuanian writer, playwright, journalist, and theoretical physicist. He is most known for novels such as Vilnius Poker and Memoirs of a Young Man.

Gavelis grew up near a monastery in the Vilnius Old Town in the 1950s. After completing high school in Druskininkai, he moved back to Vilnius to pursue a degree in theoretical physics, graduating in 1973. As a new and promising physicist, he became involved in the Physics and Mathematics Institute of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, after which he began journalistic work. He debut with a collection of short stories in 1976 and continued to write short stories, dramas and screenplays. Gavelis published Vilnius Poker (Vilniaus pokeris), his most famous work, in 1989. He died in 2002.