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One of the most popular fantasy writers in Great Britain, Australia and the USA will come to Krakow!
The Australian writer, known to Polish readers for her bestselling book series The Black Magician Trilogy, The Traitor Spy Trilogy and Age of Five, will meet her fans on the 11th of October at 6 p.m. in the Empik megastore at the Galeria Bonarka shopping centre in Krakow, where she will autograph her books.
The Perfect Medium – this is the motto of this year’s Conrad Festival, which starts on the 21st of October and lasts for one week (until the 27th of October). As every year, the Festival’s audience can expect: meetings from morning till evening, reading lessons, exhibitions, film session, free-of-charge book exchanges and, above all, more than one hundred distinguished guests. They include: Åsa Larsson – one of the most popular and the most frequently translated Swedish authors of criminal novels, Tahar Ben Jelloun – Moroccan writer, laureate i.a. of the Prix Goncourt, W.J.T. Mitchell – one of the most important figures of contemporary American humanities, the Quay Brothers – prominent creators of film animations, directors and set designers, Claudio Magris – essayist and prose writer from Trieste, traveller and chronicler of the spiritual history of Central Europe, or Anne Applebaum – American writer and journalist, who portrays the historical image of Eastern Europe in her books. Traditionally, the Festival will be accompanied by the parallel Book Fair in Krakow, considered one of the most important bookselling events in Poland.
“Every autumn we select a different context for reading literature. This year, we focus on the medial quality of literature,” says Professor Michał Paweł Markowski, artistic director of the Festival, explaining the motto of this year’s edition. „Of course, we do not approach this notion in a shallow sense. We do not mean the presence of literature in the media, although we do what we can for it to be as intensive as possible. Literature is the perfect medium, as it mediates between the world and the people, between different worlds and between the people from different worlds. It shows that the literature is not about catching reality directly, but it is the filter all of us use to sift through to what is the most important. Literature is an ongoing attempt at building the world we would like to live in, be it for just a moment.”
This year’s scaffolding for this construction is especially sophisticated. We will be talking to one of the most mediagenic philosophers of the world, Peter Sloterdijk, about the hardships of life in the globalisation era. Guru of the global media studies, W.J.T. Mitchell, is going to tell us why literature cannot be read gullibly. The Quay Brothers, the apologists of the impenetrable materiality of word and image, are going to present their latest film. Dead certain Nobel Prize candidate, Cees Nooteboom, is going to tell us about his adventures among various literary genres. “The greatest beauty of world literature,” as they call Kiran Desai, is going to confide about her life torn between cultures. Anne Applebaum is going to tell us what happened between the East and the West in Europe and what were the consequences of drawing the Iron Curtain over the Old Continent. Marci Shore is going to show us if history has taught us anything in Poland. Claudio Magris is going to speak about living in Europe of many cultures. Thanks to Max Ernst and his faithful students, we will also try to prove that realism means nothing without surrealism. And finally, we will risk the claim that the gulf between the world culture and Poland is a myth produced by malcontents.
“For one whole week in Krakow we will be asking about what fascinates us all so much in the blurry, although irreplaceable, in-between¬ zone. Between literature and reality, between people of different culture circles, between words and images, between comics and a lengthy novel, between life and art, between Poland and the world. This is what the most simple motto of the Conrad Festival is about,” invites Professor Michał Paweł Markowski.
We encourage you to read the full programme of the event.
The first cold and unpleasant autumn evenings have come. It is high time to figure out how to make them a little bit warmer. Our proposal: let’s read. If you do not have an idea about what book to read – we would like to invite you to another edition of our campaign The Second Life of a Book. This Sunday (the 29th of September) at 3 p.m., we will exchange books that will help us fight seasonal depression. Traditionally, we meet at Wyspiański Pavilion (pl. Wszystkich Świętych 2). At 3.30 p.m., the campaign’s partner – Strefa Wolnego Czytania would like to invite you to the conference hall on the first floor to a meeting within the Mistrzowie Poezji [Poetry Masters] series. This time, our guest is Tomasz Różycki – poet, essay writer, translator from French, the author of a collection of texts entitled Tomi. Notatki z miejsca postoju [Tomi. Notes from a Stopping Place] which was received very warmly by the critics. The meeting will be hosted by Katarzyna Kubisiowska.
The Second Life of a Book is a joint campaign of the Krakow Festival Office and Bookeriada.pl. Everyone can take part in the free book swap; just bring at least one book and a maximum of ten books if they are in good condition. Books published till 1995 can be swapped only for those that were also published till that year, whereas newer books (published after 1995) can be swapped for every book available during the given book swap. Find out more about the campaign at: www.drugiezycieksiazki.pl. So far, 17 events helped over 5,000 people swap books, with nearly 15,000 books finding new owners. Over 800 volumes (out of 2,300 books donated to libraries by campaign participants) ended up at the Regional Public Library, with 124 more going to the Bibliopaths’ Zone.
Media partners: RMF Classic and Fragile.
Partners: Galeria Krakowska, Strefa Wolnego Czytania, Klubokawiarnia likeKonik
A backstage hero: a creator or a craftsman? This is the title of a discussion panel which will be held on the 30th of September at 7 p.m. in Goethe Institute in Krakow on International Translation Day 2013.
Translation has become an increasingly popular discussion topic. The number of translations on the Polish book market is growing from year to year. According to Book Institute’s data, in 2011 translations constituted over 26% releases in belles letters. Reviewers more often focus on the translation in their book evaluations. Translations of foreign bestsellers reach Polish readers within months of their world premiere and compete with unauthorized translations available online. Sometimes, translations of works which have entered the canon of literature provoke discussion, objection and even rejection from the readers. Sometimes, a work of literature gains new life like a carefully restored painting thanks to a modern translation. Who are the authors of translations? Who hides behind a literary translation, an artists or a craftsman?
This questions will be asked literary translators: Laurence Dyévre, Magda Heydel, Tomasz Pindel, Abel Murcia Soriano and Tadeusz Zatorski, one of the characters of an exhibition entitled Budowniczy mostów [Bridge Constructors], which presents the portraits of twelve winners of Karl Dedecius award for Polish and German translators. The evening in Goethe Institute in Krakow will be hosted by Barbara Gawryluk, a journalist at Radio Kraków, writer and translator.
The programme of International Translation Day, prepared by Krakow’s EUNIC-member cultural institutes, the UNESCO Chair at Jagiellonian University, and the Book Institute, will include classes for high school students, film screenings, lectures and competitions.
From the 30th of September, the Goethe-Institute will house an exhibition of Deutsches Polen Institut in Darmstadt entitled Budowniczy mostów which presents the portraits of twelve winners of Karl Dedecius award for Polish and German translators.
International Translation Day will be also celebrated in Warsaw (the event will be organised by EUNIC Warsaw and Association of Literary Translators) and in Gdańsk (event organised by City Culture Institute).
Inspired by its American counterpart, the Banned Books Week will take place between the 22nd and the 28th of September.
The Banned Books Week is a campaign intended to encourage reading “in spite.” The focus is on the books that function in the world of literature as sparking sexual, political, or moral controversy; books that are often labelled as scandalous. The idea itself was developed in the United States and the first edition took place in 1982. The basis for the whole idea is the famous First Amendment to the United States Constitution guaranteeing the fundamental civic freedoms of religion, press, speech, petitioning, and assembly. Amnesty International is also involved in the campaign, pointing attention to those areas of the world where freedom of speech is punished and writers suffer penal consequences for their works or where freedom of speech is restrictively limited by the state.
In Poland, the event is coordinated by the Bibliosfera web portal. The authors propose ways of carrying out the idea in library space, register places taking part in the campaign, and provide basic materials: a list of the banned books with descriptions and the “Did you know that…?” print-ready posters. In Krakow, the Provincial Pedagogical Library, which, together with several dozen other libraries in Poland, will attempt to win new readers and generate more interest among the existing ones by means of promoting interesting cases in the history of literature, has joined the campaign.
More information is available at bibliosfera.net/zakazane-ksiazki-2013
Thursday, 26 September 2013, 6.30 p.m.
On history and more: a meeting with Agnieszka Podpora, translator of Sara Shilo’s No Dwarves are Coming.
It was six years ago that Mas’ud Dadon, known in the town as the king of falafel, was stung by a bee, fell into a puddle of oil and died, and the luck that painted Simona Dadon’s world pink suddenly turned away from her. She was left alone with a cluster of kids and she struggled to keep her head above water. And katyushas would shell the town time and again from over the Lebanese border…
No Dwarves are Coming is an excellent novel about ordinary people that cope with the difficult daily life in the borderlands in an extraordinary manner. It’s a story of youthful dreams and boundless love told by several voices. Sara Shilo is exceptionally skillful in building her characters, boldly going into the forbidden regions, bordering on tabu. The book has won several major Israeli literary awards, including the prize awarded by the Israeli Ministry of Culture of the best debut, the Tel Aviv University Award, and the Pinchas Sapir Award.
Shilo managed to show the Israel that the world has so far known very little about. (The Independent)
Admission is free of charge!
The event is a part of the Museum Means More programme financed by the Dutch Jewish Humanitarian Fund.
The Czarne publishing house is a partner of the event.
Registration for the third edition of Rymoliryktando – a national performer spelling competition prepared by valued songwriter, Łukasz L.U.C. Rostkowski – has been launched. Everyone who registers online at: www.rymoliryktando.pl by the 22nd of October will be able to face this arch-difficult dictation material. This year, the event will take place on the 26th of October in Krakow and the Council for Polish Language will be its honorary patron. The venue will be selected by the participants themselves. You may enter your proposals until the 20th of September by sending e-mail to: Ry2013@eluce.pl.
“Reklamy żółtopióry hiperszaszłyk arterie skradłszy, już wsie żyrzyńskie zeżarł trzy,” the brave participants of last year’s edition of Rymoliryktando had to face the challenge of this and many other equally difficult sentences. It turned out that spelling was not the only catch in this text. Its author made the task even more difficult by applying a characteristic “desyllabication” and plays on words while reading it out loud. Additionally, the original stage design from the film Kingsajz [King Size] with a giant teapot was to disturb the participants. So far, no one has managed to avoid mistakes in the dictation.
This year’s edition will surely be as hard but it is worth making an effort. The winner, apart from fun and adventure they will experience, will be rewarded with PLN 10,000. There are also cash prizes for the first and the second runner up (PLN 5,000 and 3,000 respectively). But it is not only about winning and prizes. “Apart from inviting people to a language game, we wish to provoke a reflection and start a discussion on the development of language, emphasize the importance of words and the value of keeping them,” L.U.C. comments. The dictation will be accompanied by a performance and concerts given by the most outstanding Polish songwriters, as well as by workshops and a discussion panel.
Along with launching the registration process for Rymoliryktando, the organizers will reveal the identification of the event. L.U.C invites young talented Polish graphic designers to each edition of Rymoliryktando, to interpret its identification. So far, Rymoliryktando posters have been designed by Wojtek Piotrowski of Wrocław’s JUICE and Piotr and Gosia of Poznań’s KINEZA. This year, Rymoliryktando’s identification has been created by Mateusz Kołek, a Krakow-based graphic designer, whose works are appreciated for their extremely unique style.
The event will be broadcast live on television and radio, so anyone can participate in Rymoliryktando. The organizers emphasize, however, that in order to enable all participants to have equal chances in the competition, the winners of past editions will not be able to win again. More information is available at: www.rymoliryktando.pl
Subsidized from the resources of National Centre for Culture within the scope of its programme “Culture – Interventions”.
Olga Tokarczuk is this year’s winner of Vilenica prize which has been awarded since 1986 by Slovene Writers’ Association to authors from Central Europe. The writer has thus joined other Polish Vilenica winners such as Zbigniew Herbert (1991), Adam Zagajewski (1996) and Andrzej Stasiuk (2008). Other Vilenica recipients include, among others, Tomas Venclova, Milan Kundera, Péter Esterházy and Claudio Magris.
Olga Tokarczuk is only the sixth woman writer to receive Vilenica in the 26-year-long history of the award. Previous female winners are Ilma Rakusa (2005), Brigitte Kronauer (2004), Ana Blandiana (2002), Erica Pedretti (1999) and Libuše Moniková (1993).
Source: www.instytutksiazki.pl
“The Poetry Night is history now, but it only marked the beginning of a series of literary events that will take place this autumn in Krakow. This is our guide to the ones you cannot miss,” we can read in today’s issue of Gazeta Wyborcza w Krakowie. Out of eight events recommended by the newspaper, half are organized by the Krakow Festival Office: Conrad Festival, the Second Life of a Book, Publishers’ Virtual Library and the NaNoWriMo project. We are also a partner of Rymoliryktando organized by L.U.C.