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We know further guests of this year’s edition of the Conrad Festival!

Claudio Magris, a Trieste-born essayist, prose writer, traveller and chronicler of the spiritual history of Central Europe; Anna Applebaum, an American writer and journalist, who portrays the historical image of Eastern Europe; Szczepan Twardoch, a prose writer from Pilchowice, who quarrels not only with the world, but also with his own world-view; and Ireneusz Kania, a brilliant multilinguist and translator who has just prepared a new translation of poems by Konstandinos Kawafis (on the 150th anniversary of birth and on the 80th anniversary of death of the Alexandrian poet) – this is the next group of confirmed guests of the 5th Conrad Festival. We will open this year’s edition with an exhibition of graphics, collages and illustrations by Max Ernst. Come and join us in Krakow between the 21st and the 27th of October!

‘In L’infinito viaggiare Claudio Magris writes that a short story should resemble an expedition where the most important thing is movement in space itself rather than reaching the destination. Following this rule, we should write (and read) without hurry, stop in the middle of the sentence again and again, look at its form, listen intently to its sound and then let ourselves be guided through successive paragraphs resembling squares of a small town and even farther – beyond language, beyond literature. And we do all of this in order to avoid the inevitable end (of reading, wandering or life), to prolong the remaining time in which there is room for a conversation and thought. Successive editions of the Conrad Festival are held in a similar rhythm and for the same purpose. Together with outstanding writers from the whole world we stop by books and phenomena that constitute points of reference of contemporary culture.’ We also recollect dead authors in order to revive their thought in new interpretations and confront it with our ideas that are being forged today. For us, literature is a form of action, a form of communication and a form of existence… an inalienable form,’ writes Grzegorz Jankowicz, Executive Director of the Festival, in the introduction to this year’s second Magazyn Conrad.

Claudio Magris

A prose writer, essayist, translator and expert in German studies, a professor of contemporary German literature at the University of Trieste. He is of Italian descent. He publishes regularly in renowned European magazines, such as the Italian magazine Corriere della Sera and the Polish quarterly Zeszyty Literackie. He has received many prestigious prizes, including Erasmus, Herder and Vilencio. In 2009 he received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade, which is awarded annually at the Book Fair in Frankfort on the Main.

The following of his books were published in Polish: Danubio (1990), Microcosmi (2002), Altro mare (2004), Alla cieca (2006), Illazioni su una sciabola (2009), Itaca e oltre (2009), L’infinito viaggiare (2009), Le voci (2010). Apart from the first two books co-translated by Anna Osmólska-Mętrak, all the other works were translated by Joanna Ugniewska in an outstanding manner.

As regards the matter of literary creation, he is fascinated mainly with Central Europe as a place where various cultural influences intermingle. One of the examples of such multiculturalism is his hometown Trieste, to which Microcosmi is devoted. He is also fascinated with history observed from various perspectives and places where languages and traditions intermingle. In order to enhance this diversity, he makes use of various genres and combines them into a specific travel diary.

Anne Applebaum

An American writer and journalist, feature writer at The Washington Post; she won a Pulitzer Prize (2004) for her monograph Gulag. A History, which is a reconstruction of the world’s most genocidal institutions. At the end of the 1980s and at the beginning of the 1990s she was a correspondent of The Economist, for which she wrote about the fall of communism and transformations taking place in Poland. In 1995 she published the book Between East & West, which was also translated into Polish. In 2012 she was nominated for the National Book Award, one of the most prestigious literary awards in the USA, for Iron Curtain: The Crushing of Eastern Europe, 1944-1956. She is the Director of Political Studies at the Legatum Institute in London, where she runs classes in political and economic relations. As a private person, she is the wife of Polish Minister of Foreign Affairs, Radosław Sikorski. She is the author of From A Polish Country House Kitchen (2011), which was published in Poland by Wydawnictwo Literackie.

Ireneusz Kania

An outstanding translator, the author of over 60 translations from over a dozen languages, a famous expert in Buddhist philosophy and cabbala. He graduated with a degree in Roman philology from the Jagiellonian University. He presented Polish readers with basic works of Mircea Eliade, Karl Kerényi and Emil Cioran. He translated works by Umberto Eco, Constantin Noiki, as well as Sefer Agadot ha-Zohar and the Tibetan Book of the Dead. He compiled and translated a corpus of texts of the H?nay?na School of Buddhism (Mutt?vali, 2009) from P?li. He is a member of the Jury of the Transatlantyk Award, which is granted by the Book Institute to outstanding popularisers of Polish literature abroad.

Szczepan Twardoch

A prose writer. He comes from the Upper Silesia region. He came a long way from fantasy short stories to a novel entitled Morfina [Morphine], for which he was awarded with Paszport Polityki [Polityka’s Passport] in 2012. A columnist for Polityka and Wysokie Obcasy Extra. He won the Nautilus Award for his short story Rondo [The Roundabout] in the category of the best Polish fantasy short story published in 2006. His collection of short stories Tak dobrze [So Good] was nominated for the Gdynia Literary Award. An expert in Silesian language and culture, he often refers to the question of his identity and roots. He is also an expert in weapons.

You can read more about the recently confirmed guests of this year’s Conrad Festival in this year’s second issue of Magazyn Conrad, which is issued by Tygodnik Powszechny. Magazyn is available in kiosks from today.

Where did Jan Sztaudynger spend his holiday as a little boy? Why do the inhabitants of Krzeszowice know very well what happens in Sorrento? Where does one of Tadeusz Kantor’s ‘impossible monuments’ stand? Who used to visit Goszyce during the war? You can ask dozens of literary questions in Malopolska. Learn new trails and sensational facts. This year we are discovering unknown literary routes. Reading Małopolska will be present on Radio Kraków during the entire vacation. Partners of the campaign are the Krakow Festival Office and www.readingmalopolska.pl.

9 weeks – 9 routes

During the entire vacation we will walk along literary routes together with a reporter of Radio Kraków in search of trails that were left by the greatest Polish writers and creators in Malopolska.

In each vacation week, we propose a different literary route: the environs of Krakow, the Krynica surroundings, literary walks across Zakopane and Zakopane villas, Tarnów, southern and eastern Malopolska as well as mountainous routes and summer resorts. Each route will include both places associated with literary characters, protagonists and events and places where writers lived, stayed and worked. We will learn unknown facts from their life and literary legends with excellent literature in the background. We will inquire and ask about and reconstruct past events. Reports from literary wanderings from Monday till Friday on Radio Kraków, descriptions of visited places and photographs will be available in a special section at www.radiokrakow.pl and at www.readingmalopolska.pl. All places visited, discovered and described by us will be marked on the literary map of Malopolska.

Competition for literary trackers

We encourage you to keep track and follow the route of the reporter of Radio Kraków. Those who will visit at least two places on the routes indicated by us and will send their photos will receive sets of books from us. Your photo stories and reports will be published on Radio Kraków. Competition details and rules: www.radiokrakow.pl

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

How to avoid boredom during summer holidays? Read! In cafes, in trams, and even on the streets. For the first time in history almost twenty of the largest Krakow publishing houses have joined forces to present the best books of this summer to readers and, at the same time, to promote reading via modern technologies. As of today (the 1st of July) more than 60 bus and tram stop shelters in the city centre have turned into the Virtual Library of Publishers. Each book cover presented on posters is accompanied with the assigned QR code– you only need to scan it via your mobile phone and download a fragment of the desired book for free.

‘We want to promote reading among young people, who often use modern technologies to gain access to culture,’ explains Izabela Helbin, Director of the Krakow Festival Office. ‘I see more and more people reading in trams and buses, which makes me very happy. Through our vacation campaign we want to recommend the books that are worth reading and to facilitate and simplify access to interesting literature.’

The campaign that has been joined by almost 20 Krakow publishing houses – a5, Austeria, Bona, Dodo Editor, Fundacja Przestrzeń Kobiet, Insignis Media, Karakter, Koobe, Sine Qua Non, Skrzat, the Association of Polish Writers, WAM, Wydawnictwo Literackie, Wydawnictwo Otwarte, Znak, Znak Literanova and Znak Emotikon – 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.

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