Born in Vilnius in 1974, Kristina Sabaliauskaité is an art historian. An honorary doctor at the Vilnius Academy of Arts, she is one of Lithuania’s most prominent contemporary writers. Since 2002, she has lived in London, where she worked as a foreign correspondent and columnist for Lithuania's largest daily newspaper until 2010. Her debut came in 2008 with the historical novel Silva Rerum, a four-volume saga that follows the life of the noble Narwoysz family between 1659 and 1667. It became a bestseller and was acclaimed by both critics and cultural historians.

Following this phenomenal success, Kristina Sabaliauskaité conceived a novel about the Lithuanian wife of Peter I, Martha Helena Skowska, the Russian Empress Catherine I, The Empress of Stone. This book also became a number-one bestseller even before appearing on bookstore shelves. Its second part, published in February 2021, sold over 70,000 copies in the first month after release. In total, more than 200,000 copies have been sold. The book received rave reviews across Europe, leading to multiple reprints. It was also named Book of the Year 2022 in Estonia.

Thanks to her precise and well-referenced style, as well as rigorous historical research, Kristina Sabaliauskaité has created both memorable and thrilling sagas. With Silva Rerum, she invented a grand baroque novel capable of depicting the adventures of a society and its major transformations. Her narrative skillfully intertwines lightness, humor, and passages filled with terror and violence. Underpinning the story are themes such as mysticism, corruption, and the interplay between science and religion, all rendered in a striking language. 

Continuing her dedication to portraying characters with extraordinary destinies, Kristina Sabaliauskaité once again achieves this in The Empress of Stone, which combines rawness and poetry. Through her heroine, the story of an entire people is recounted, driven by relentless passions and war, with unyielding suspense and sharp world observation. 

Kristina Sabaliauskaité’s books have been widely acclaimed across Europe. Her historical novel Silva Rerum was named Book of the Year 2009 in Lithuania and received the Jurga Ivanauskaite Literary Award the previous year. In 2010, it ranked among the ten most memorable Lithuanian books of the past decade. The following year, the art historian was awarded the "Saint Christopher" prize by the municipality of Vilnius for her reflections on Vilnius in literature. 

In 2015, Kristina Sabaliauskaité was named Woman of the Year in Lithuania and received the Order of the Cross medal in 2017 for her contributions to literature, culture, and society. She is participating in the Lithuanian Season in France in 2024 with events including a literary salon, Les Rendez-vous de l’histoire, scheduled in Blois on October 11, and a literary encounter at the Théâtre de l’Odéon in Paris on October 12, 2024. She is also part of the Histoire de Lire literary fair in Versailles from November 23 to 24, 2024.