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Adam Zagajewski will guide you around Krakow

On Friday (the 6th of September), we would like to invite you to the Bona café and bookstore at ul. Kanonicza 11 for a special screening of the film Widok Krakowa [A View of Krakow] directed by Magdalena Piekorz. The screening will start at 6.30 p.m. Entrance is free of charge! We would like to remind you that in Magdalena Piekorz’s film, one of the greatest contemporary poets living in Krakow, Adam Zagajewski, guides us around his city. The screening accompanies this year’s Poetry Night.

The partners of the Polish episode of City(W)rites series, Magdalena Piekorz’s Widok Krakowa, include: Telewizja Polska SA and Instytut Książki (the Book Institute), while the production was subsided by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage with the resources from the Promocja czytelnictwa (Promotion of Readership) programme operated by Instytut Książki.

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

The Polish episode of the City(W)rites series was executed within the scope of Reading Małopolska project, which is a series of activities subsided from the resources of the Malopolska Regional Operational Programme for the years 2007-2013, within which Malopolska and its capital city, Krakow, promote their literary heritage and become involved in creating a cooperation network of regions that are creative within the scope of literature.

Wydawnictwo Literackie, Fundacja Panteon Narodowy and the City of Krakow would like to announce that the funeral of Sławomir Mrożek will take place in Krakow on Tuesday, September 17th, at 1 p.m. at St. Peter and Paul Church. The service will be conducted by the Krakow Metropolitan Bishop, Cardinal Stanisław Dziwisz.

Earlier that day, at 10 a.m., the Barbican, where an urn with Sławomir Mrożek’s ashes and a condolence book will be placed, will be opened to the public. This will be a chance for Krakow’s residents to bid farewell to Sławomir Mrożek.
At 12.30 p.m., the urn will be taken by a horse drawn hearse from the Barbican to St. Peter and Paul Church (ul. Grodzka). The funeral service will be attended by Sławomir Mrożek’s family, friends, co-workers, as well as by representatives of state and local authorities. The service will be transmitted on a large outdoor screen located in pl. św. Marii Magdaleny.

The urn will be buried at Panteon Narodowy [National Pantheon], which is a burial site for the greatest Polish representatives of literature, art, culture and science, everyone who is worthy of the name of a Great Pole, regardless of their views and believes.

Panteon Narodowy will be available to the residents of Krakow from about an hour after the end of the funeral service.

Drivers and passengers may expect traffic disturbances near sites of the services.

 

After Warsaw and Łódź, it is high time for Krakow. This is where, on the 26th of October, the third edition of Rymoliryktando, that is a national spelling competition originated by one of the most valued contemporary lyricists of the young generation, Łukasz L.U.C Rostkowski, will take place. Where will the spelling competition be held? It is up to you! We would like to encourage you to send venue proposals to the following address: Ry2013@eluce.pl.

No one has written this extremely difficult dictation without mistakes so far. No wonder why. Each sentence of the text dictated by L.U.C is abounding in spelling niceties, while the artist often uses a characteristic “desyllabication” and word plays while reading it out loud. If this is not enough, the contestants in this verbal duel are disturbed by sudden events which make them feel as if they are in a computer game and this is highly distracting. Therefore, it is not an easy challenge, yet one worth taking. Apart from fun and great atmosphere, the winner may expect a cash prize of PLN 10,000; there are also cash prizes for the first and the second runner up (PLN 5,000 and 3,000 respectively).

The participants will decide on the venue for Rymoliryktando on their own. “We would like to introduce proper language standards to the streets, also to places excluded from participation in culture. We would like to go into public space and share the richness of our language with passers by,” says Łukasz L.U.C Rostkowski. “Thus, we would like to encourage you to send venue proposals to the following address: Ry2013@eluce.pl.”

It is no coincidence that Krakow will become the capital of the “written word” this year. The city is candidating for the prestigious title of the UNESCO City of Literature. “Rymoliryktando is a project whose aim is to emphasise the importance of language in general and the beauty of Polish language, so I can’t imagine we’re not there,” says Izabela Helbin, the director of the Krakow Festival Office. “The event inscribes perfectly into a series of activities we have been executing to promote the city’s literary image, which include support for two major events – the Conrad Festival and the Czeslaw Milosz Festival, but also the cooperation with the Book Fair in Krakow and the organisation of a big all-year-round campaign known to literature enthusiasts as “Drugie życie książki” [The Second Life of a Book], which is basically a free of charge book exchange,” she adds.

The national spelling competition will be accompanied by unique performances, debates and scholarly discussion panels. The reliability and level of the contest will be supervised, as each year, by doctor Katarzyna Kłosińska of the Council for the Polish Language.

More information is available at: www.rymoliryktando.pl

“Subsidized from the resources of Narodowe Centrum Kultury [National Centre for Culture] within the scope of its “Kultura – Interwencje” [Culture – Interventions] programme.”

Wydawnictwo Literackie and the Noir Sur Blanc publishing house are very sorry to inform that early in the morning of the 15th of August, Sławomir Mrożek died in Nice at the age of 83. He was a writer of world renown, an intellectual, an authority, and an important figure to many generations of Poles.

Sławomir Mrożek left a huge legacy that entered the canon of not only Polish, but also world literature for good. He wrote short stories and brilliant plays that conquered stages in the furthest corners of the globe. Readers will also remember him as the author of the extremely frank Diary, the great letters he wrote to his friends – the most important figures of European culture, and the author of witty drawings that have already become a classic of Polish humour.

“Sławomir Mrożek was a great author, but also a very warm person. All of Wydawnictwo Literackie was very lucky to have been able to commune with such a great personality and publish his brilliant works. He was our friend,” says Anna Zaremba Michalska, head of Wydawnictwo Literackie.

Sławomir Mrożek was born on the 29th of June 1930 in Borzęcin near Krakow. After the war, in the 1950s, he began studies in Krakow in various fields of study (Architecture, the Academy of Fine Arts, Oriental Studies), however, he did not graduate from any. At the same time, he began working at Dziennik Polski, his satirical texts also appeared in Szpilki, Po prostu, Życie literackie, and Nowa Kultura. In 1953, Wydawnictwo Literackie published the first collections of these texts: Opowiadania z Trzmielowej Góry and Półpancerze praktyczne. In 1958, the Dramatyczny Theatre in Warsaw staged Mrożek’s first play entitled Policja (The Police). In 1953, he went to Italy with his wife Maria Obremba, where they took the decision to emigrate. Still, his subsequent plays were published in Poland, including Czarowna noc (The Magical Night) and Śmierć porucznika (The Death of the Lieutenant). In 1964, Tango was published – it consolidated the writer’s position and brought him worldwide renown.

In 1968, he moved to Paris. He published a letter of protest against the participation of the Polish army in the invasion of Czechoslovakia in Le Monde and the Paris Kultura. This displeased the Polish authorities and he was called to return to the country immediately. In response, Mrożek asked for asylum in France. In Poland, censorship banned the publication of his works and the staging of his plays. In 1969, his wife died of cancer in West Berlin.

The ban on the publication of Mrożek’s works in Poland slowly abated in the late 1970s – Mrożek did not visit Poland until 1978. He visited the country again in 1981, however, after the 13th of December, he published a Letter to Foreigners in Le Monde and the International Herald Tribune and refused to publish his works in Poland and show his plays on TV.

In 1987, he married Susana Osorio Rosas, a theatre director from Mexico. He rejected the Award of the Literary Foundation in Poland, but he came to the country, where he met with his readers for the first time. In 1989, he moved to Mexico with his wife.

In the years 1996-2008, Sławomir Mrożek lived in Krakow with his wife, and in June 2008, they moved to Nice, France.

In 2010 in Krakow, at the initiative of Wydawnictwo Literackie, the “Mrożek for the 21st Century” festival was held, organised on the occasion of the author’s 80th birthday. It was then that the 1st volume of his Diary came out. The publication of Mrożek’s diaries was crowned by volume 3, published in March 2013. Readers and critics agree that Mrożek’s Diary is one of the most important achievements of Polish diary writing to date. Volume 4 may be published in the future, including the 1990s.

The last time Sławomir Mrożek visited Poland was in June 2013: he took part in the premiere of his latest play Karnawał, czyli pierwsza żona Adama (Carnival or Adam’s First Wife) at the Polski Theatre in Warsaw. He was also supposed to be the greatest star of the Big Book Festival and meet with the readers, but this was impossible due to health reasons.

Wydawnictwo Literackie is preparing the publication of the correspondence of Sławomir Mrożek and Swedish intellectual Gunnar Brandell. In the autumn, Noir Sur Blanc will also publish a volume with Mrożek’s drawings. In October, the Krakow premiere of Karnawał, czyli pierwsza żona Adama will take place at the Słowacki Theatre.

More information about Sławomir Mrożek’s works can be found at www.slawomirmrozek.eu.

Source: Wydawnictwo Literackie

Photo by the Book Institute

This coming Tuesday (the 20th of August) at 8 p.m., we would like to invite you to the Literki music club (ul. Berka Joselewicza 21) to the first in the series of screenings of 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. Admission is free! Come and join us!

 

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

We once again encourage: let’s take books to the streets, let’s all change the fact that books are associated with libraries only. The second edition of a competition for artists, accompanying the Conrad Festival, is being launched under the theme of Book – the Perfect Medium. We are waiting for designs of original installations inspired by books and which can be executed in the public space. We will present the most interesting idea during the festival in Krakow’s Market Square.

We are waiting for submissions until the 9th of September 2012 at: pomysl@conradfestival.pl. They will be evaluated by a jury including L.U.C., who is preparing a new literary campaign in Krakow in the autumn, the details of which he will reveal soon. We will find out who the winner of the main prize of PLN 5,000 (to be allotted for the project’s execution) is on the 13th of September. Let’s get to work!

This year, works may be submitted in one category only: outdoor. We are counting on your creativity. Designs taking the nature and the specificity of the place into consideration, the possibility to interact with the audience and which are interdisciplinary and innovative in nature are particularly welcome. The following documents need to be attached to the submission: the author’s portfolio, the visualisation of the design in a particular space, a short description and technical specification, description of the completion, and the substantiation of the choice of a particular display site.

The Free Reading Zone is waiting for submissions of places for its literary guide to Malopolska.

“Strefa Wolnego Czytania (Free Reading Zone) is for those who have selected reading and focus on literature: readers, publishers, and animators of culture. For all those who show others how to live and breathe books in a city that lives by books. The Zone includes people and places. Planned events and spontaneous campaigns. Publications and blog entries. The Zone is the literary side of Krakow” – this is how the “Znaczy Się” New Art Foundation describes the undertaking.

“Together with the Readers of Dziennik Polski, we want to collect the most interesting spots in which literature lives on the map of our region. They should include places where one may exchange books, discuss one’s impressions after reading or simply read. Comfortably, without rush or stress, with pleasure,” says Olga Brzezińska from the “Znaczy Się” New Art Foundation.

The originators encourage the inhabitants to inform about such places in Malopolska, where one may spend time reading in a nice and pleasant atmosphere. They may be both cafes and parks, squares.

The Free Reading Zone has been in operation for several years. During the first edition of the campaign in 2010, its organisers searched for book- and reading-friendly places in Krakow, involved in the promotion of reading.

Thanks to the inhabitants’ help, several dozen such places were awarded Zone certificates. They included very diverse places: al. Waszyngtona and its vicinity, municipal buses and trams, the Vistula Boulevards, as well as clubs such as Cafe Philo, Camelot, Cheder Cafe, Dym, and Piękny Pies, as well as the Nowa Huta lake, the Botanic Garden of Jagiellonian University, and the Jordan Park.

The zone is present online at www.strefawolnegoczytania.pl. There one may find information about all the events taking place under its aegis – meetings, lectures, discussions, and other undertakings, such as Przekaźniki Książkowe, i.e. a book swap including titles from the field of cooking through to motherhood.

The Zone also enters the public space, thanks to campaigns such as the flash mob (a group of people assembling suddenly for a specific, often amusing purpose) Czytanie na Kładce Bernatka (Reading on the Bernatek Footbridge), during which crowds of book lovers sat down on and around the wooden walkway connecting the Kazimierz district with old Podgórze.

If you know a place in Malopolska that you think should belong to the Zone, a place where “book-related events are initiated, where it is pleasant to read, where one may discuss books and get infected with the reading virus”, tell us about it. Complete the form on the Zone’s website. Submissions may be sent until the 31st of August. In the autumn, a literary guide to reading-friendly places in Malopolska will be published.

The Krakow Festival Office partner is the campaign’s , and Dziennik Polski is its media patron. The project is implemented with financial support from the Malopolska Region.

Source: Dziennik Polski

Lady Gaga opened a reading marathon of a famous sci-fi novel, Solaris, written by a Polish writer – Stanisław Lem.

The marathon was organized by the Marina Abramovic Institute, which was founded by an artist and performer who has recently starred in a mini-documentary Picasso Baby: A Performance Art Film. A group reading of the novel with participation of 50 artists was to take eight hours.

Source: Onet.pl
Photo The Marina Abramovic Institute’s fanpage

On Tuesday (the 13th of August) a campaign entitled KsięgoZbiór [Book Collection] will be held in Krakow for the first time. We would like to invite all book lovers to join us in the Jordan Park at 6 p.m. In order to participate in KsięgoZbiór, simply come with a book you are currently reading. The campaign is about a group of people reading together within the public space. Its originators come from Łódź, where the first edition of the campaign took place in October 2011.

Any city, town or village can join the campaign now. This year’s edition will last from the 1st to the 15th of August and residents of 33 towns and cities all over Poland will read together.

More information on the campaign is available at: ksiegozbior.weebly.com

Photo Małgorzata Strzelecka
Source: krakow.pl

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