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Tender purchases with a gift

From the 1st of August, every person who visits the Czuły Barbarzyńca bookshop-cum-café in Krakow (at ul. Powiśle 11) and purchases items for a of minimum PLN 50 will receive an extraordinary gift – a DVD with Widok Krakowa [A View of Krakow], a film directed by Magdalena Piekorz and featuring one of the most outstanding contemporary poets: Adam Zagajewski. This offer accompanies the premiere of the film in the DVD version.

Widok Krakowa is a part of the City (W)Wites international literary and film project, , which presents the literary capitals of Europe through meetings with writers connected with these cities. The role of the ambassador of Krakow and Malopolska region is played by Adam Zagajewski, who introduces the audience to his masters, favourite places and his friends among authors. There will also be reminiscences of other outstanding authors connected with the city: Wisława Szymborska and Czesław Miłosz. Participants of the 3rd Czesław Milosz Festival were the first to watch this film.

The producer is the Krakow Festival Office, with TVP and the Book Institute as partners. The project is supported by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage with funds from the Promoting Readership program. The funds are managed by the Book Institute.

The film’s media patron is the lubimyczytac.pl portal.

The Polish episode of the City(W)rites is being produced under the Reading Malopolska project. Reading Malopolska is a project envisaged for the years 2007?2013 and supported with the funds of the Malopolska Regional Operational Programme, under which Malopolska and its capital, Krakow, want to communicate their literary heritage and participate in the building of a network of co-operation of creative regions in the field of literature.

The project Literacka Małopolska is co-financed by the European Union as part of the The Malopolska Regional Operational Programme 2007-2013 ERDF.

Pic. Michał Sosna

Stowarzyszenie Willa Decjusza [The Villa Decius Association] would like to invite you another edition of Ogrody Twórczości 2013 [Gardens of Creativity] this Sunday, the 4th of August at 5 p.m. This time, within the interiors of Willa Decjusza, the Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz Theatre from Zakopane will present Katarzyna Pietrzyk’s recital based on Wisława Szymborska’s …Świat, wydanie drugie [The World, Second Edition]. Entrance with free tickets available at the InfoKraków venues (ul. św. Jana 2, Wyspiański Pavilion ‒ pl. Wszystkich Świętych 2) and immediately before the show. The number of seats is limited.

“I was bewitched by the poet’s sense of humour, her tendency towards self-irony, her wisdom and ability to discover the unusual in the usual. I perceive the generally intimate poems as small masterpieces with a consummate form and a surprising, apt point. Excerpts from some of these poems fit together into a logical whole to me,” says Katarzyna Pietrzyk.

The following poems by Wisława Szymborska were included in the recital: Allegro ma non troppo, Koniec i początek [The End and the Beginning], Konkurs piękności męskiej [Male Beauty Contest], Nic darowane [Nothing’s a Gift], Obmyślam świat [I Meditate Upon the World], Odzież [Clothes], Pierwsza fotografia Hitlera [Hitler’s First Photograph], Podziękowanie [Gratitude], Portret kobiecy [Portrait of a Woman], Prospekt [Prospectus], Przemówienie w biurze znalezionych rzeczy [A Speech at the Lost and Found], Urodziny [Birthday], Uśmiechy [Smiles], Życie na poczekaniu [Life While You Wait].

“Katarzyna Pietrzyk does not “play Szymborska” in this show and she actually refers to the poet only by wearing this little hat. She is a character who experiences life like we all do, a typical everyman, or everywoman in this case. But this “typical woman” is aware that “after every war someone has to tidy up”, so that, say, in the grass, overgrown in causes and effects, someone can be stretched out with a blade of grass in his mouth gazing at the clouds…

The selection of texts is extremely well thought out. It does not include the commonly known poems which were quoted by all the media after the death of the Nobel Prize winner, but each piece forces us to reflect on life and us within this life. The tension is relieved several times with tiny, less serious bits, because Wisława Szymborksa wrote also ironic, or even self-ironic poems, while her distinctive sense of humour was also her mark.”

Maciej Pinkwart

The Stanisław Ignacy Witkiewicz Theatre in Zakopane
Wisława Szymborska
…Świat, wydanie drugie

Screenplay and performance: Katarzyna Pietrzyk
Music: Jerzy Chruściński
Choreography consultant: Anita Podkowa
Stage design: Ewa Dyakowska-Berbeka

Photography: R. Parma

Writing poems somewhat resembles making tea. These two first lines are like brew to which water must be added: there are more images, crystallized thoughts in them. And they all revolve around what was in the beginning. But water must be boiling hot ‒ Adam Zagajewski says in Milena Rachid Chehab’s interview published in the weekend edition of Gazeta Wyborcza.

GW: Is it possible to speed it up somehow?

AZ: If you drink a lot of tea…

GW: Is being a poet a profession?

AZ: No, it isn’t. The phenomenon of poetry exists outside the market, poetry collections aren’t goods, a poet isn’t a specialist. In some countries, in Spain for instance, there are poetry bestseller lists, but they are rather symbolic. I have happened to be on such a list, which doesn’t mean I became a wealthy man. It came to mind then that your name is on a bestseller list if you sell more than ten copies.

GW: What do you write then when you need to fill in ‘profession’ on a form?

AZ: Poets usually don’t admit they are ones. I can always write ‘academic teacher’ because I earn my living by running classes at the University of Chicago after all. W.H. Auden used to tell how someone on a plane had asked him about his job and he replied he was an undertaker. And this is true: poets write elegies. Wallace Stevens was a director of an insurance company. No, not a director. A deputy director. A poet can never be a director.

We would like to remind you that Adam Zagajewski was a guest at this year’s edition of the Czesław Milosz Festival. During the festival, the film Widok Krakowa (A View of Krakow) directed by Magdalena Piekorz, in which the poet guides us around his city, was presented. The film is a part of the European City(W)rites project. The Polish episode was produced by the Krakow Festival Office, while the filming was supported by Krakow Film Commission.

The producer is the Krakow Festival Office, with TVP and the Book Institute as partners. The project is supported by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage with funds from the Promoting Readership program. The funds are managed by the Book Institute.

The film’s media patron is the lubimyczytac.pl portal.

The Polish episode of the City(W)rites is being produced under the Reading Malopolska project. Reading Malopolska is a project envisaged for the years 2007?2013 and supported with the funds of the Malopolska Regional Operational Programme, under which Malopolska and its capital, Krakow, want to communicate their literary heritage and participate in the building of a network of co-operation of creative regions in the field of literature.

The project Literacka Małopolska is co-financed by the European Union as part of the The Malopolska Regional Operational Programme 2007-2013 ERDF.

From tomorrow (the 19th of July) in the Czuły Barbarzyńca bookshop-cum-café in Krakow (ul. Powiśle 11) there will be a wealth of attractions for fans of good literature. We invite you to the Summer Book Fair combined with unusual literary meetings, film screenings, competitions with attractive prizes and sports tournaments. The Fair will last one month, till the 18th of August. The Krakow Festival Office is a partner for this event.

The Summer Book Fair includes a 20% discount for 2,000 books. Organisers will provide a very rich offer encompassing, among others, belles-lettres, children’s books, detective stories, biographies, reportages, guides, comic books and specialistic literature. Books will be available at special prices for the entire month. On weekends they will be displayed in special tents on the square in front of the building of the Tourist Services Centre. Educational and dexterity games will also be available for purchase. Everybody can also play table tennis and foosball at any time of the day, and sport tournaments will take place in August. In addition, we invite you to a knowledge quiz Dr. Why on the 20th of July (Saturday) at 7 p.m. Literary competitions will take place as well. Keep track of Czuły Barbarzyńca’s profile on Facebook!

And perhaps one of the most interesting attractions – literary meetings.

On the 4th of August (Sunday) at 6 p.m. there will be a meeting with Krzysztof Gryko – a poet, musician, translator and journalist. He graduated from the University of Warsaw in the field of Polish philology and from Maria Curie Skłodowska University in the field of music therapy. His poetic debut was the book Godziny szczytu [Rush Hours] (2002). He has roots in Puławy and the Lublin region. He lives in Krakow, where he teaches Iberian languages and plays in music bands: Los mar sentimentales and Kabart.

On the 11th of August (Sunday) at 5 p.m. we invite you to a meeting with Anna Burnat, the author of Poza utartym szlakiem [Off the beaten track] – a collection of reportages from Bangladesh. Reportaże z siedemnastu niezwykłych podróży. Poza utartym szlakiem [Reportages from seventeen unusual trips. Off the beaten track] is an anthology of reportages on trips to various parts of the world. According to what the publisher promises, the book does not contain anything conventional, or anything that one may learn from standard offers of travel agencies. This is guaranteed by names of authors – travellers full of fantasy (sometimes excessive fantasy), true tramps and globetrotters, who always run towards the unknown, avoid dangers, experience incredible adventures and note them down in their ‘travel log’.

We particularly recommend Pixel and lyre – workshops that are organised by Korporacja Ha-Art. We invite you to come along on the 9th of September (Friday) at 5 p.m. Entrance is free of charge! During the Ha!art’s summer workshops you will have an opportunity to look at various ways of being a writer among the multimedia cacophony coming from offline and online areas. During the three blocks into which workshops are divided you will become familiar with: artistic strategies used by authors of digital literature (from egotistic self-promotion to altruistic therapy), practical methods of use of network scripts, open-source libraries and proprietary software in the creation of poetry and prose, and primary rules of independent publication on digital data carriers (Kindle, iBooks and Polish self-publishing platforms). Workshops are conducted by: Mariusz Pisarski – a researcher of the literary hypertext, a member of the Electronic Literature Organization and the Association for Computing Machinery, the author of the book Xanadu. Hipertekstowe przemiany prozy [Xanadu. Hypertextual transformations of prose]. The book and workshops are financed by the National Culture Centre.

And what else can you expect during the Summer Book Fair? Keep track of Czuły’s page and come into the café!

This is great news for all inhabitants, readers and lovers of literary Krakow. After months of work, the www.miastoliteratury.pl interactive multimedia portal Krakow City of Literature is up and running; its aim is to present its colourful history, numerous institutions and festivals as well as daily literary events. The portal is modelled on similar websites of the UNESCO Cities of Literature. It will be filled with contents in Polish and English on a current basis. You will find information about publishing traditions of Krakow, its most important libraries, literary institutions, writers associated with Krakow and, finally, on the most important events: festivals, poetic meetings, literary street art and films inspired by literature.

‘We have created a portal that will be a source of information about literary Krakow for persons who would like to find a multitude and diversity of initiatives in one place. The Krakow City of Literature portal will be regularly supplemented with knowledge about diverse aspects of the literary life of the city. It will form a natural supplement to the Reading Małopolska portal, the aim of which was to communicate the literary diversity of the region,’ says Izabela Helbin, Director of the Krakow Festival Office. ‘On this website we also want to show projects that fulfil the mission of the UNESCO Cities of Literature, where literature becomes the pillar of not only artistic, but also economic development. It is another step towards the fulfilment of objectives connected with Krakow’s efforts to obtain this prestigious title,’ says Izabela Helbin.

Until now, Krakow has not had any similar web page. Information about the literary life of the city was dispersed on websites of various institutions, universities and publishers. In the newly created portal, the Krakow Festival Office wants to show the climate of the spiritual literary capital of Poland – the European City of Culture in 2000, which has been aspiring to the title of a UNESCO City of Literature since 2010. On the basis of properly elaborated information, the portal is aimed at showing the strong impact of Krakow as the centre of Polish literature and an important centre of European literature, a city of culture with a huge potential, a rich base of talents and large resources of creative energy.

‘I am happy that a base of knowledge about literary Krakow is being created. This is another important step in the fulfilment of our obligations towards the literary circles of Krakow, but also the fulfilment of UNESCO’s guidelines’, explains Magdalena Sroka, Deputy Mayor of the City of Krakow for Culture and City Promotion. She goes on to add: ‘Together with the inhabitants of Krakow and its literary circles, we think that the acquisition of the prestigious title of UNESCO City of Literature is a proper enhancement of the importance of Krakow for Polish and world literature and is profoundly justified by the centuries-old traditions of the city. On the basis of this belief, we build important programs supporting the diversity and richness of the literary initiatives in Krakow. In making efforts to obtain the title, we believe that literature can contribute to the improvement of social cohesion, stimulate economic growth and the development of creative industries and have a significant impact on intercultural dialogue.’

The Krakow City of Literature portal will accumulate the most important information in one place and indicate the direction of the city’s development in the field of literature. As the aim of the portal is to communicate literary Krakow in the network of similar cities, it must be a user-friendly guide to the diverse and often complicated literary life of Krakow.

The www.miastoliteratury.pl portal will be a continuously updated compendium of knowledge about literary Krakow: its most important writers, most famous books, exceptional publications, cult bookshops, libraries with a unique atmosphere, literary cafés, poetic meetings and the hospitability of Krakow inhabitants towards men of letters. Therefore, the creators of the portal also request readers to submit notes concerning literary institutions, events, writers, publishing houses or literary places to: kontakt@miastoliteratury.pl.

Under the Krakow City of Literature program, the Krakow Festival Office, as the entity responsible for co-ordination of efforts to obtain the title of City of Literature, promotes the literary image of Krakow. It organises two large literary festivals (an annual Conrad Festival and a biennial Czesław Miłosz Festival), engages in initiatives of publishing houses which have their offices in Krakow, cooperates closely with the Book Fair and supports all initiatives aimed at making the residents of Krakow and tourists familiar with literature. Apart from that, within the scope of the Reading Małopolska program, the Krakow Festival Office carries out a number of promotional activities aimed at emphasising the literary potential of the region. The www.readingmalopolska.pl interactive multimedia portal is a compendium of knowledge about literary attractions of the region. Within the past year alone, the Krakow Festival Office has also organised two large international conferences which drew the greatest figures of the literary world to Krakow, including representatives of UNESCO Cities of Literature, PEN International and ICORN. For more than a year, in co-operation with Bookeriada.pl, the Krakow Festival Office has organised The Second Life of a Book – a free book swap campaign that has gained the recognition of readers and attracts hundreds of reading fans every month. In addition, the Krakow Festival Office runs series of literary workshops for children, records a series of interviews with the greatest writers living in Krakow or visiting it on the occasion of international festivals and inspires the creation of literary murals and installations in urban space. It also conducts a series of campaigns promoting bestsellers of Krakow publishing houses, promoting new forms of reading and reaching new recipients (Virtual Library of Publishers campaign using QR codes for mobile equipment and e-books).

The www.miastoliteratury.pl portal is one of the parts of the Krakow City of Literature program funded partially from the resources of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage – a social & promotional campaign aimed at making use of the power of the brand of literary Krakow in the promotion of reading attitudes and Polish literature.

On the 13th of July (Saturday) at 8 p.m. Polvision showed the film Widok Krakowa [A View of Krakow] directed by Magdalena Piekorz! The film features Adam Zagajewski as the host taking the viewers around “his” Krakow. As you may remember, the Krakow Festival Office is the producer of the Polish episode of the City(W)rites series – Magdalena Piekorz’s Widok Krakowa – and the shooting was supported by the Krakow Film Commission.

Widok Krakowa is a part of the City (W)Wites international literary and film project, , which presents the literary capitals of Europe through meetings with writers connected with these cities. The role of the ambassador of Krakow and Malopolska region is played by Adam Zagajewski, who introduces the audience to his masters, favourite places and his friends among authors. There will also be reminiscences of other outstanding authors connected with the city: Wisława Szymborska and Czesław Miłosz. Participants of the 3rd Czesław Milosz Festival were the first to watch this film.

Polvision is the oldest and largest Polish television station outside Poland, which broadcasts its 24-hour program every day on the generally available free digital channel 24.4 and on the Comcast cable network on channel 397. The range of Polvision encompasses Chicago and its suburbs. For over 20 years Polvision has served a numerous population of Poles in Chicago by promoting Polish culture and maintaining the traditions and contact with the native language. Polvision’s cameras are every place where something important is happening for a Pole living in America. The television also tries to bring interesting productions from Poland for the purpose of their broadcasting. It is part of the Polnet Communication LTD media group, which also comprises Polskie Radio Chicago AM 1030 WNVR.

The producer is the Krakow Festival Office, with TVP and the Book Institute as partners. The project is supported by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage with funds from the Promoting Readership program. The funds are managed by the Book Institute.

 

The film’s media patron is the lubimyczytac.pl portal.

The Polish episode of the City(W)rites is being produced under the Reading Malopolska project. Reading Malopolska is a project envisaged for the years 2007?2013 and supported with the funds of the Malopolska Regional Operational Programme, under which Malopolska and its capital, Krakow, want to communicate their literary heritage and participate in the building of a network of co-operation of creative regions in the field of literature.

The project Literacka Małopolska is co-financed by the European Union as part of the The Malopolska Regional Operational Programme 2007-2013 ERDF.

 Pic. Michał Sosna

We can boldly say that the Virtual Library of Publishers has conquered our mobile devices! Within only two weeks from the start of the literary vacation campaign, readers have downloaded almost 2,500 e-books! And this is not the end! If you have not yet taken advantage of our proposal to spend summer with a book yet, we would like to remind you how it works: you simply need to scan the QR code of the selected book from the poster or visit qr.miastoliteratury.pl… and download a free fragment of the e-book to your mobile device. Close to twenty of the largest publishing houses from Krakow have joined forces to promote reading via modern technologies. More than 60 tram and bus stop shelters in Krakow have changed into the Virtual Libraries of Publishers. We present the best books of this summer on posters. Find your ideal story!

If you become engrossed in a given book after reading its free fragment, you can easily buy the e-book by clicking the link at the end of the scanned fragment. You can also visit one of the following bookshops co-operating with the Krakow Festival Office, where you can buy the traditional version of the book by showing the downloaded fragment of the e-book:

  • Bona Bookshop at ul. Kanonicza 11
  • Matras Bookshop at Rynek Główny 23 and in Galeria Kazimierz
  • Młoda Bookshop in Szołayscy’s House at Plac Szczepański 9
  • Muza Bookshop at ul. Królewska 47
  • Pod Globusem Bookshop at ul. Długa 1

The QR code campaign will last till the end of August. On the streets you can come across three versions of posters presenting a total of 70 books. These include books from various fields, including: belles lettres (by Ignacy Karpowicz, Szczepan Twardoch, Richard Lourie), biographies (of Steve Jobs, Leo Messi, David Bowie etc.), poetry (Wisława Szymborska, Stanisław Barańczak, Zbigniew Herbert etc.), children’s literature (by Andrzej Maleszka and Michał Rusinek) as well as popular literature (Mariusz Wollny, Jakub Ćwiek).

The Virtual Library of Publishers is a part of a series of campaigns run by the Krakow Festival Office in order to promote a literary image of the city. The Krakow Festival Office organises two large literary festivals (the annual Conrad Festival and a biennial Czesław Miłosz Festival), eagerly contributes to initiatives of publishing houses which have their offices in Krakow, cooperates closely with the Book Fair, which is believed to be the most important event for the publishing industry; and supports all initiatives aimed at making the residents of Krakow and tourists familiar with literature. Apart from that, within the scope of the Reading Małopolska programme, the Krakow Festival Office carries out a number of promotional activities aimed at emphasising the literary potential of the region. Within the past year alone, the Krakow Festival Office has also organised two large international conferences which drew the greatest figures of the literary world to Krakow, including representatives of UNESCO Cities of Literature, as well as members of PEN International and ICORN. In addition to that, an interactive multimedia Internet portal – readingmalopolska.pl – was created as a compendium of knowledge on literary attractions of the region. For more than a year, in co-operation with Bookeriada.pl, the Krakow Festival Office has organised The Second Life of a Book – a huge free book swap campaign that has gained the recognition of readers and attracts hundreds of reading fans every month. It is no coincidence that Krakow was the first city in Poland to mark Seats for Readers in public transportation vehicles; this was done to celebrate the Miłosz Year two years ago.

On the 18th of July (Thursday) Wydawnictwo Czarne plans to publish an anthology of new Russian poetry entitled Wdrapałem się na piedestał [I Have Climbed the Pedestal] with translations by Jerzy Czech – an outstanding translator and populariser of Russian literature. It is a colourful kaleidoscope of different poetic styles, where regular verses occur rebelliously and dynamically beside free verses, and poetic miniatures intertwine with long narrative poems. Awaited for a long time, the first anthology of Russian samizdat poetry in Poland is undoubtedly a must-read for everyone who associates the word ‘poetry’ only with solemn boredom.

Wdrapałem się na piedestał is a brilliant release encompassing over 50 years of the development of Russian poetry – from the 1950s till the present times. The volume of translations by Jerzy Czech is a fascinating overview of the works of sixteen poets representing several generations. These poets are very different, but inseparably bonded by a strong sense of belonging to the second (i.e. unofficial) circulation of culture.

Wdrapałem się na piedestał is a collection of poetic styles; most importantly, contrary to the perverse title, these ironic and grotesque works filled with black humour have nothing in common with the ‘pedestal’! Even Joseph Brodsky shows his bluff and obscene face, which is so different from the one that the Polish reader has been accustomed to.

Jerzy Czech – a Polish poet, translator and publicist. For 30 years he has promoted contemporary Russian literature. He has translated artistic prose, poetry and drama, non-fiction literature and works from the field of theatre studies. The laureate of the ZAiKS Award (2003), the Ryszard Kapuściński Award (2011) and the Angelus Central European Literary Award (2011) for the Polish translation of the book The Unwomanly Face Of The War by Svetlana Alexievich.

As you may remember, Jerzy Czech was a guest of this year’s Milosz Festival, during which he presented fragments of his anthology of contemporary Russian poetry. He had also visited Krakow as a guest of the Conrad Festival in 2011.

The book is co-funded by the Centre for Polish-Russian Dialogue and Understanding.

This summer the Krakow libraries have prepared a whole gamut of experiences and attractions for their readers (particularly the youngest ones)! There will be games, workshops, visual arts activities and mutual reading of books, excursions to the Zoological Garden and the Botanical Garden, putting a jigsaw puzzle together and a trip to the island of treasures. For all of the summer holidays, young people and children can have excellent fun with books and discover fantastic literary worlds.

Here is the wealth of attractions that the Krakow libraries offer to you in July and August.

The Nowa Huta Public Library in Krakow (os. Stalowe 12) has prepared an attractive summer vacation pastime program entitled Vacation liking for the library. All libraries have actively joined the organisation of activities for children and young people. Children will spend time actively, safely and attractively. Librarians have planned excursions to the Botanical Garden of Jagiellonian University, which will be combined with reading in the shadow of trees and the collecting of leaves for the herbarium, to the Zoological Garden, where children will make their first literary attempts, to the Skalski Park and to the Green Ravine. The program also includes competitions, literary & educational activities, origami, visual arts and ecological workshops in libraries and in the outdoors, including the Nowa Huta Meadows. They will be conducted by Dr Marcin Nobis and Krzysztof Kus under the Ecological education: On friendly terms with nature project.

Many activities will be devoted to Julian Tuwim in connection with the Year of Tuwim that is being celebrated. Organising various activities, librarians will familiarise young readers with Tuwim and his poems. During meetings, children will travel to the land of fantasy, experience unusual adventures and stimulate their imagination. We propose, among others, origami workshops entitled Mr Tuwim’s Animals, More Fun With Tuwim – a meeting within the With A Book in the Shadow of Trees series, and Tuwim’s Land – a meeting within the cycle Loud Reading on a Magical Carpet.

All young readers can spend their time safely in libraries together with other peers and under the supervision of librarians. They will have free access to the Internet, educational computer games and board games, e-learning platforms: FunEnglish.pl and angielski123.pl and visual arts materials. For more details, visit www.biblioteka.krakow.pl.

If you want to know about Summer in the City in the Krowodrza Public Library (ul. Wrocławska 50), check here: www.kbp.krakow.pl.

And what has the City Centre Public Library in Krakow (ul. Masarska 14) prepared under the campaign? See for yourself: www.sbpkrakow.pl.

The Podgórze Public Library in Krakow (ul. Powroźnicza 2) has prepared, among others, COMIC STRIP LOCOMOTIVE – a competition for the best comic strip based on Julian Tuwim’s poem Locomotive. This competition is organised as a part of the celebrations of the Year of Julian Tuwim. For further details, visit: www.podgorska.krakow.pl.

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