Marcelijus Martinaitis born in a peasants family in Paserbentys village (now liquidated) in Raseiniai District Municipality.
For his work Toli nuo rugių ('Far from Rye', 1982) Martinaitis was awarded to the Lithuanian SSR State Prize.
Later, after the Lithuanian independence, he wrote chiefly essays, memoirs, published his diaries (Prilenktas prie savo gyvenimo, 'Bended to the Own Life', 1998; Mes gyvenome, 'We Have Lived', 2009).
[1] He also wrote several puppet-plays (Pelenų antelė in 1971, Avinėlio teismas in 1976, Žemės duktė in 1981), edited and published an anthology of Paulius Širvys (Ir nusinešė saulę miškai, 1984), an album dedicated to folk wood-carver Ipolitas Užkurnys.
Martinaitis translated poetry of Marina Tsvetayeva, Mārtins Čaklais, Simon Chikovani, Juan Ramón Jiménez, José Martí, Pablo Neruda, Paul-Eerik Rummo, Tomas Tranströmer, among the others.