Krakow at the New Delhi World Book Fair

Tomorrow, the 15^th February, is the beginning of the New Delhi World Book Fair. This year is the 60. anniversary of Indo-Polish diplomatic relations. Poland will be strongly represented but the Krakow accent will be particularly noticeable. An exhibition will be held within the Fair’s premises presenting the literary Krakow and its heritage, prepared by the City of Krakow and the Krakow Festival Office. The project’s partner is the Małopolska Region. The Office will be represented by Robert Piaskowski, Deputy Director for Programme Planning who will have a presentation on: Kraków UNESCO City of Literature: Between Tradition and Modernity.

Krakow’s exceptional heritage, with its monuments and the richness of its cultural offering, is the themes of the exhibition on Krakow UNESCO City of Literature, which can be visited from tomorrow onwards in India’s New Delhi. The exhibition comprises 30 boards with large-format photographs presenting, amongst other things, exceptional monuments, prestigious festivals, and creative spaces linking economy and culture.

“UNESCO City of Literature is a very prestigious but challenging title, and because of that, every single element of the exhibition has been created with great care for its detail. Preparing the exhibition, the City of Krakow, together with the Krakow Festival Office, focused primarily on the literary heritage of the city,” says Izabela Helbin, Director of the Krakow Festival Office, and adds: ^“Krakow is without doubt a city of literature. Its literary character means not only that many world-recognized writers live and create here, but also that it is in Krakow that the publishing market is exceptionally well developed. It is here that we have the most prominent literary festivals (Milosz Festival, Conrad Festival), exceptional campaigns which promote reading in urban space (such as The Second Life of a Book, literary murals, projections of poetry on the walls of Krakow townhouses), as well as creative book industries, such as Krakow bookshops and Poland’s largest Book Fair.”

It is the 41^st World Book Fair now in New Delhi. The previous Fair was attended by 1,200 exhibitors from India and 31 from abroad. The organisers are expecting 55 000 visitors a day. The Fair will continue until Saturday, 23^rd February.

More information about the Polish presence at the World Book Fair in India, organised by the Polish Book Institute and the Polish Institute in New Delhi, can be found here.

Knock!, Knock! at the window, could it be a mouse? / No, ’tis the beetle come a-v¡siting at -the ladybird’s house! – This is the beginning of a poem which probably everyone knows. The Pod Globusem bookshop welcomes you to read aloud together this and other poems by Jan Brzechwa and Julian Tuwim. These are the merriest poems of childhood. At 12.00 o’clock, on Saturday, the 15^th February, rhymes about the locomotive (Polish: Lokomotywa], the turnip [Rzepka], the bird broadcast [Ptasie radio], the vegetable stall [Na straganie], and- the fantasy land of Bergamuty islands [Na wyspach Bergamutach] will be read aloud by- journalists of the RM F Classic radio: Magda Miśka-Jackowska and Tomasz Piekarski. And after the reading, the bookshop invites children to a visual arts workshop – to make Valentine photograph frames. Tissue paper, felt, beads, brocade and coloured paper will be there to play with!

Cost: PLN 15. Book at pr@liberglob.pl.

Young people of all ages are all invited!

On 25 February, at 6.00 pm you are invited to a meeting with Magdalena Grzebałkowska, the author of Beksińscy. Portret podwójny at Czuły Barbarzyńca (11 Powiśle Street, Krakow). The meeting with the author will be moderated by Łukasz Wojtusik.
Zdzisław Beksiński never spanked his son.
Zdzisław Beksiński never hugged his son.
Beksińscy. Portret podwójny is a book about love – looking for love and not knowing how to express it. It is also about loneliness – so great that it becomes a wall through which no one can break. About the situation in which we sometimes want something very much but we fail to achieve this. About life which sometimes looks like death and death which looks like life.
It isn’t a book about a renowned and fashionable artist who painted rather bizarre and scary pictures. It is not a book about his son with a dark soul, who was fascinated with death for so long that his suicidal attempts finally succeeded. Neither is it a book about obsession, compulsion, phobia and artistic frenzy nor about career, money, exhibitions and critics. It is not about some strange emotional relationships, fascination with music, film and new technologies or even about people who used to write a lot of letters.

We recommend a new virtual literary trail entirely devoted to Jerzy Pilch for literature lovers and fans of his writing (and not only to them). The trial blends together biography and literary streams that are inextricably interwoven into the works of this prose writer. No wonder then that the author is, as he says – addicted to his own biography. After  Visitors to Malopolska and  the Jerzy Turowicz Trail, there is a new section of the literary route on the interactive portal www.readingmalopolska.pl. Follow us and visit Jerzy Pilch’s places!

Every Monday a new literary trail will be published on www.readingmalopolska.pl, each on a different theme. The newest such trail is devoted to Jerzy Pilch – novelist, journalist, playwright and film script-writer. Agnieszka Pudełko will guide us through a walk following the footsteps of one of the most popular contemporary writers.

Next week The Trail of Literary Heroes will premiere, then The Tischner Trail, followed by The Małopolska Avant-Garde Trail. Each virtual trail leads to different sites and deals with different themes, always related to literature. Follow us on the website!

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

The Villa Decius Association invites writers, poets, essayists, critics, literature translators and journalists from the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary to submit applications for residency scholarships under the third edition of the Visegrad Literary Residency programme.
Under this year’s edition of the programme, 32 residents will have the opportunity to pursue their literary projects at four Host Institutions (in Bratislava, Budapest, Krakow or Prague) in the period of their choice: 1 May – 12 June 2014 or 1 September – 30 November 2014.
32 grantees under the programme will be selected on the basis of their individual applications sent via an online application form, available on the Villa Decius Association’s website.
The Visegrad Literary Residency programme has been launched by the International Visegrad Fund as a series of residencies and literary events. It is addressed to writers, poets, essayists, critics, literature translators and journalists from the Visegrad Group countries (Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary).
The programme is based on the partnership of four Host Institutions, from each of the V4 countries: Institut umeni in Prague, Petőfi Irodalmi Múzeum in Budapest, Villa Decius Association in Krakow and Literarné informačné centrum in Bratislava.
The aim of the programme is to host selected Literary Residents from all four countries in each V4 country, supporting their work and mobility and creating a platform for information exchange. On top of this, the programme fosters the development and promotion of literature created in Visegrad Group countries in Central Europe. The Villa Decius Association acts as the Programme Coordinator.
Detailed information: www.villa.org.pl

The Wisława Szymborska Foundation has just closed collecting volumes for the 2nd edition of the international poetry competition. The Wisława Szymborska Award of PLN 200,000 will be given to the best volume of poetry, originally written in Polish or translated into Polish, published last year. In 2013, the award went to Krystyna Dąbrowska and Łukasz Jarosz ex aequo.

In total, 168 poetry books have been submitted to the competition. Authors include Marzena Broda, Miłosz Biedrzycki, Wojciech Bonowicz, Tadeusz Dąbrowski, Jaceka Dehnel, Leszek Engelking, Zenon Fajfer, Darek Foks, Agnieszka Wolny-Hamkało, Julia Hartwig, Ewa Lipska, Krzysztof Karasek and Marcin Świetlicki.

A dozen or so translations have also been submitted, of such names as Herta Müller, Duo Duo, Gary Snyder and Philip Levine.

Most of the works are by authors born in the 1970s and 1980s. Poets born in the 1990s are also becoming increasingly visible. There are also more bilingual volumes published in both Polish and English by Polish residents of Great Britain.

In 2013 we received more books sent by the authors themselves and published at their own expense. In 2014 there were decidedly more volumes sent by publishing houses. Some debut volumes were also sent.

In May 2014 the Jury of the Wisława Szymborska award will select five nominees. The winner will be announced in October.

On 10 February, 5.00 pm, a meeting with the Norwegian photographer Rune Eraker will be held at Villa Decius. The meeting heralds the first exhibition of works of the photographer to open at MOCAK – the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow – on 13 February.
At the same time it is the first exhibition of socially engaged photography at MOCAK. It consists of 73 black-and-white photographs from The Smell of Longing series and two screenings showing other photographs from this series never displayed before. All the photographs presented at the exhibition have been taken since 1988. They document Eraker’s travels in 22 countries ravaged by war, political repression and hunger. They are an attempt to address the reasons why people are forced to abandon their roots and seek shelter abroad. Documenting everyday situations from the lives of the displaced against the backdrop of tragedy and war, the artist always took a couple of snapshots.
The exhibition will juxtapose photographs the artist has selected for his series The Smell of Longing with others he rejected. The photographs will be accompanied by the artist’s commentary – Eraker’s personal account from the conflict zones.
From 22 February, six students of the Film School in Łódź will display their works created during the photography workshop with Rune Eraker at the Re Gallery.
The meeting with Rune Erkaer at Villa Decius and his exhibition at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Krakow – MOCAK once again shows that Krakow is a city of lively discussion on human rights and contemporary refugees. In 2011, Krakow joined the International Cities of Refuge Network (ICORN). In May 2013, on the eve of the 3rd Miłosz Festival – devoted to the author of the famous Noty o wygnaniu (Notes on Exile) – an extraordinary conference of ICORN and PEN International WiPC – the most important international organisations gathering writers from all over the world and promoting human rights was held in Krakow. More than 200 guests from 50 countries participated in the conference Writing Freedom. Today, Krakow is becoming a point of reference for civic movement and non-governmental organisations from Central and Eastern Europe which advocate the freedom of speech. Krakow is sending a clear message that it is a city of freedom that promotes human rights.
The meeting with Rune Eraker will be held on 10 February at 5.00 pm at Villa Decius (interpreted into Polish, free admission). The opening of the exhibition of the Norwegian photographer’s works at the Museum of Modern Art in Krakow – MOCAK is planned for 13 February, 6.00 pm.
Rune Eraker (born 1961) – a Norwegian-born documentary photographer. Since 1990 a member of the photographic group Hollandse Hoogte. Heads the editing team of the magazine Norwegian Journal of Photography. In 2002, he won an award given by the USA Society for News Design for his series The Democratic Republic of Congo, and in 2009 he was named Freelancer of the Year in Norway.
Rune Eraker’s photographic series are firmly based in the aesthetics of classical European documentary photography. His works have appeared in numerous magazines all over the world.
Opening date: 13.2.2014
Open: 14.2–27.4.2014
Curator: Delfina Jałowik
Co-ordinator: Joanna Saran

The Stoberskiade is several hundred stickers scattered across all the continents of the globe, which, after being photographed, will come together on a web site to create a wholly unique “street biography” of Jaś Stoberski. This is simultaneously a tourist route through the life and work of a writer that owes a debt to situationist psychogeography, where the concept of the map is set on the basis of drifting through places that are, by premise, unattractive and untouristy. This “sticker biography” is open-ended non-fiction, encouraging the viewer to download a sticker from the Ha!art web site, print it out, stick it in a place where the great stroller Stoberski might have gone, and then send a photograph to the web-site administrators (portal@ha.art.pl).

The genre of works created on stickers has a very rich tradition; in literature it reached a high water mark, for example, in Nick Montfort and Scott Retberg’s novel Implementation.

The stickers feature statements by the following: Adam Macedoński, Andrzej Kowalczyk, Jan Pieszczachowicz, Aniela Birecka, Leszek Walicki, Lucyna Merklinger, Jan Masłowski, Barbara Sommer-Czycz, Barbara Kotlarska, Stanisława Mięsowicz, Łucja Mróz, Paweł Heszen, Hałatkiewicz family.

The point of departure for this experimental biography was the thesis that Stoberski was a mystery figure, a symbol of ambiguity, Citizen Kane in reverse (unlike the American magnate, he never possessed anything). He was the very image of the happy simpleton, but unraveling his story would give Lacan or Derrida ample room to expound on the substitution of desire or the theory of “lack”. He was also a figure who exploded the framework of the traditional book and who, in this age of digital humanities, is being brought to life in several hundred stickers collectively prepared by Piotr Marecki (text) and Katarzyna Janota (visuals). The point of departure for the creation of this bilingual biography was rewalking Stoberski’s route (The Stoberskiade) and listening to the stories of Cracovians whom he obsessively visited (the route around Krakow’s apartments was retraced by placing ads in the local papers). The multiple perspectives presented on these stickers prove how difficult it is to speak of a figure who appeared regularly and seldom spoke a single word about himself.

Jaś Stoberski was a secular saint, snatching happiness out of the thin air, a friend to Krakow’s wives, a naif writer. One of Krakow’s most outstanding figures from the communist era. He wrote several hundred very similar stories, in which he sketched portraits of Krakow’s women and men and their apartments. A master of detail, “Krowodrza’s answer to Proust”. He was a proponent of the belief that “everyone is different”. He was chronically dependent on the people whom he visited on the daily route he walked through Krakow, and to whom he gave money. He will forever be associated with the golden era of Krakow’s Przekrój; in the rubric of this communist-era world-class magazine he subversively played the role of the global/local writer who went everywhere on foot and almost never strayed outside of Krakow and its environs.

Following the model of American literary contests which involve attempts made by the public at writing in a given month, Ha!art has declared February 2014 national short-story-writing month.
We are looking forward to receiving your texts, which – we hope – will surprise us, show us new paths for the development of Polish literature and will help you to reach readers. We have set some simple rules: your short stories must be begun and completed in 2014, and the authors should have never published in our magazine before. We will be waiting for your texts until 11:59 pm on the 28th of February 2014. Our group of writers and journalists will then collectively select the best stories which will be published in the 45th issue of Ha!art. We will pay you some paltry fee, as is usual in the periodical press, and will invite you to Krakow for a reading series and will find you readers. Surprise us!
The texts should be sent to korporacja@ha.art.pl with the comment: „Luty narodowym miesiącem pisania opowiadań”.
Also until the end of February 2014, you can send contributions to anniversary issue No 45 of Ha!art.
To mark the 16th anniversary of Ha!art magazine we are opening our first 2014 issue to our Readers. Please send us your critical reviews, reportages, diary excerpts or other texts. Invent new literary genres for us! Let’s change the roles – now we shall be glad to be your readers and we will establish cooperation with you. There is only one rule: contributors must never have published in Ha!art before.