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The Krakow Festival Office and Ha!art invite you to the ninth edition of the Reading Series. The November edition will open with an acoustic performance by Jarosław Tochowicz, an interpretation of Nick Montfort’s World Clock; you will be then taken on a journey around North and Central America, and the Caribbean with Szczepan Ligęza’s journal, and also listen to Justyna Czechowska’s Polish translation of Tove Jansson’s Messages, planned to be published in February next year. With his excerpts of Brazilian prose, Gabriel Borowski will add to the rich programme of the meeting, which will be crowned by Olga Szmidt – the editor-in-chief of the Popmoderna magazine – who will present her new book Korespondent Witkacy. The presentation will precede an official premiere of the book.
The Krakow Reading Series takes the form of regular meetings at which writers, essayists and translators read excerpts of their works. The project is aimed to present literature and bring writers together. You will have the opportunity to listen to works on which writers are still working, the most recent works of renowned authors and debut authors who will be selected by the project curators.
The Reading Series will be moderated by Magdalena Potrawiak
Friday, 28 November 2014, 7 P.M.
Bomba, pl. Szczepański 2/1, Krakow
Reykjavik UNESCO City of Literature’s Reykjavik Reads Festival held annually during the month of October, received the 2014 Jónas Hallgrímsson Award on Icelandic Language Day. The award is given by the Icelandic Ministry of Culture and Education for outstanding projects in the field of language and literature and is named after one of Iceland’s most loved poets, Jónas Hallgrímsson, born on November 16, 1807.
See: link
The Iowa City UNESCO City of Literature’s One Book Two Book Children’s Literature Festival was awarded the 2014 Collaboration Award from the Iowa Cultural Corridor Alliance. The award is presented to an organization in recognition of an outstanding project done in collaboration with other alliance members. The festival was produced in collaboration with the Iowa City Public Library, the Coralville Public Library, and the Iowa Children’s Museum, among others.
See: link
Edinburgh UNESCO City of Literature’s Great Scott! Campaign won the City Award from Creative Edinburgh, the support body for creative industry businesses and individuals in Edinburgh. The City Award recognises an outstanding creative contribution or activity that has promoted Edinburgh nationally or internationally. The Great Scott! Campaign saw the words of author Sir Walter Scott placed on the floor, walls and walkways of Edinburgh’s main train station, and distribution of 25,000 free copies of a specially created book, in multiple formats. The campaign marked 10 years of Edinburgh’s designation as a UNESCO City of Literature.
See: link
There will be no queues, no shortage of goods and no need to pay! These wonders will happen, and not for the first time! On the 21st of November, the next round of the Czytaj KRK! Campaign, already the third one this year, is starting. In Krakow, thanks to the mobile application, we will read 10 best-selling e-books for free. On the virtual shelf, this time you will find books by Szczepan Twardoch, Agata Passent, Elton John, Adam Zagajewski, Przemek Kossakowski, Szymon Hołownia, and others. Scan and read!
In the coming November evenings, we will be warmed up by strong coffee and powerful literature, thanks to the Czytaj KRK! application. QR codes, enabling the free lending of books, will be found on stands placed on the tables in Krakow cafés and pubs. Traditionally, nearly 100 posters will be distributed in Krakow libraries and cultural institutions. The complete list of locations is to be found at www.qr.miastoliteratury.pl.
To be able to use the Czytaj KRK! application, you just need a smart phone or a tablet equipped with Android or iOS operational system. Similarly to previous rounds, also this time the down-loaded e-books will remain active for 30 days. Czytaj KRK! is an unprecedented joint project of the Krakow Festival Office and Woblink, a Polish leading e-book platform.
The books offered in the third round are:
- Czy jesteś psychopatą (English original title: The Psychopath Test)by Jon Ronson (Wydawnictwo Insignis)
- B jak Bauhaus. Alfabet współczesności (English original title: B is for Bauhaus: An A-Z of the Modern World)by Deyan Sudjic (Wydawnictwo Karakter)
- Morfina by Szczepan Twardoch (Wydawnictwo Literackie)
- Elton John. Miłość jest lekarstwem. O życiu, pomaganiu i stracie (English original title: Love Is the Cure: On Life, Loss, and the End of AIDS) by Elton John (Wydawnictwo Sine Qua Non)
- Kto to Pani zrobił? by Agata Passent (Wydawnictwo Wielka Litera)
- Staś i Nel by Leszek Talko (Wydawnictwo Znak Emotikon)
- Holyfood by Szymon Hołownia (Wydawnictwo Znak)
- Asymetria by Adam Zagajewski (Wydawnictwo a5)
- Bursztynowa dziewczyna. Anna Jantar we wspomnieniach by Mariola Pryzwan (Wydawnictwo Marginesy)
- Na granicy zmysłów by Przemek Kossakowski (Wydawnictwo Otwarte)
We remind you that people outside Krakow, unable to scan QR codes from data carriers available in the city, can read for free excerpts from all books presented in this round, thanks to the Czytaj KRK! application. At www.qr.miastoliteratury.pl, you will find all information concerning the campaign and the list of books available.
Czytaj KRK! is an expansion of the 2013 project known as the Virtual Library of Krakow. It involved placing posters that resembled full bookcases at bus and tram stops in six Polish cities, featuring QR codes that, after having been scanned, allowed to download free excerpts from nearly 70 latest and bestselling books. This unprecedented campaign, aimed at the promotion of reading with the use of modern technologies, attracted the attention of major national media and readers. The free excerpts had nearly 20 000 downloads in total.
The publishers participating in the third round of the campaign are: Insignis, Karakter, Sine Qua Non, Znak Emotikon, Znak, Marginesy, a5, Wielka Litera, Wydawnictwo Literackie and Wydawnictwo Otwarte.
The books are recommended by the campaign’s media patrons: LubimyCzytać.pl web portal, Radio Kraków and the Dziennik Polski daily.
The a5 publishing house and the Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology in Krakow have the pleasure to invite you to a meeting devoted to the long-awaited volume of Ryszard Krynicki’s poetry – Haiku. Haiku mistrzów (Haiku. Haiku of Masters).
The first collection of poems by one the leading contemporary poets have written in the last eight years contains so far unpublished haikus which he has created over a dozen years or so, as well as poems which show his approach to this form of poetic expression and translations of Japanese masters. Next to the author, another participant in the meeting is Agnieszka Żuławska – Umeda, a Polish born Japanese linguist, translator of Japanese literature, an outstanding specialist in haiku and renku poetry.
The meeting will be moderated by Anna Nasiłowska
Monday, 8th December, 6.00 pm
Main Hall, Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology
26. Marii Konopnickiej Street
Admission is free. Don’t miss out!
Today, at 7.00 pm, a multimedia presentation of Krakow – UNESCO City of Literature will be held at the Polish Institute in Vienna. A representative of the Krakow Festival Office will acquaint the audience with Krakow seen from its most beautiful angle – through literature. Immediately after the presentation, Magdalena Tulli, the author of novels: W czerwieni (In Red), Tryby (Moving Parts) and Sny i Kamienie (Dreams and Stones) will meet with visitors.
Let’s remind our readers that on 21st October 2013 after three years of efforts – Krakow was officially declared the UNESCO City of Literature. Thus it became the seventh city in the world to hold this prestigious title (after Edinburgh, Melbourne, Iowa City, Dublin, Reykjavik and Norwich).