Laimonas Briedis is a native of Vilnius, Lithuania, but currently makes his home in Vancouver, Canada. He holds a doctoral degree in human geography from the University of British Columbia and did his postdoctoral research in the History Dept. of the University of Toronto.

His Book, Vilnius, City of Strangers has received glowing reviews across the English speaking world and is a perennial non-fiction best seller in Lithuania (both in the original English and in the Lithuanian translation.) having been reprinted 5 times.

Briedis is a frequent teacher at the Summer Literary Seminar in Vilnius initiated by Concordia University (of Montreal), and has just completed a major project on digitally mapping the literary history of Vilnius in connection with Vilnius University.

His research and writings have consistently focused on the complex fabric of Lithuanian history in relation to Europe and the world; linking insiders and outsiders, recent years and the deep past, and a multitude of religions and language groups. He has tracked the various diasporas of Lithuania across Europe and North America and as far beyond as Jerusalem and Shanghai.