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Zuzanna Ginczanka. Only happiness is true life. An exhibition devoted to the poet at the Miłosz Festival

Appreciated by the poets of Skamander and Witold Gombrowicz, loved by the Warsaw bohemians for her talent, incredible personality and beauty. The poems by Zuzanna Ginczanka (Zuzanna Polina Gincburg), a Polish-Jewish poet, are full of maturity, considering both her artistic skills, as well as her existential considerations. The figure of the poet herself, for long shrouded in obscurity, became a source of fascinating inspirations for the artists, poets and researchers. Soon she will also be discovered by the participant of the Miłosz Festival and Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow. On the 8th of June at 6:00 PM, the opening of the “Zuzanna Ginczanka. Only happiness is true life” will take place in the History of Photography Museum in Krakow.  The exhibition will run until 15 August 2016.

 

The exceptional character and the creations of Zuzanna Ginczanka will be presented in the form of archival materials from the collection of the Adam Mickiewicz Museum of Literature in Warsaw. The visitors will have an opportunity to see the manuscripts and photographs from the poet’s private album, as well as contemporary art referring metaphorically to her life and poetry.

 

This ambitious artistic project reflects the extraordinary nature of the life of one of the most talented, but at the same time one of the most unappreciated women creating in the inter-war period. She grew up in Volhynia, in a cultural melting pot, among Poles, Ukrainians, Russians and Jews. When she arrived at Warsaw in 1935, she quickly became someone to admire because of her talent and unprecedented beauty. She was a poet, a columnist and a translator. She published in Szpilki, Wiadomości Literackie, Skamander, Nowe Widnokręgi and Almanach Literacki. In 1936, at the age of 19, she released her first volume of poetry, O centaurach [On centaurs]. Her poems are filled with sensuality, eroticism and satire, with increasing presence of fear of war and warnings about anti-Semitism.

 

Her biography is deeply marked by tragic war-time experiences. In September 1939 she was forced to flee to Lviv. She barely survived when she was denounced by the hostess at the house where she stayed. The name of the woman was immortalised in one of the poems, “[***]” (“Non omnis moriar”) – an ironic and bitter account of war. In 1942 Ginczanka left to Krakow and remained in Swoszowice, using counterfeit documents. After being found out because of her appearance, she ran to Krakow. In 1944 she was arrested by the Gestapo in a house at Mikołajska Street. She was shot.

 

Independence, sensuality, impressive sensitivity and talent. Zuzanna Ginczanka – who was she really? The exhibition devoted to the artist in the History of Photography Museum will be an attempt to find the traces of her thoughts and art, and juxtapose them with the present. The authors show how deeply the character of Zuzanna Ginczanka influenced the artists of the subsequent generations, despite being hidden from the general audience. Now, the participants of the Miłosz Festival will have an opportunity to unveil and engage into an unprecedented dialogue with the poet in the space of art. What will be the result of that meeting?

The artists, whose works will be presented on the exhibition: Bogusław Bachorczyk, Stanisława Celińska, Hubert Czerepok, Alex Czetwertyński, Renata Dancewicz, Marta Deskur, Zuzanna Ginczanka, Maja Gordon, Aneta Grzeszykowska, Dominik Jałowiński, Ninel Kameraz Kos, Eryk Lipiński, Anna Orlikowska, Krystyna Piotrowska, Mikill Skugga, Slavs and Tatars, Maria Stauber, Aleksandra Waliszewska

 

Co-organisers of the project: Polish Modern Art Foundation, Adam Mickiewicz Museum of Literature in Warsaw, Miłosz Festival, City of Literature Foundation, Krakow Festival Office, Walery Rzewuski History of Photography Museum in Krakow, Jewish Culture Festival in Krakow.

 

More information about the Festival and the upcoming events will soon appear at: www.miloszfestival.pl

 

Bez tytułu

This year, there will be roads still untraveled, but there also will be familiar, already well-trodden paths. Literary walks, organised once a month, are an opportunity to carefully explore the literary map of the city. Two Krakow guides – Anna Hojwa and Agnieszka Pudełko – will take the curious to where literature was created and lives in Krakow.

 

In the rich walking plan for 2016 are women’s walks – in the footsteps of Krakow’s female writers and of course the most important woman of Polish literature – Wisława Szymborska. There is also a Baltazar Gąbka walk, in theory for children, even though we already know there are adults impatiently waiting for it.

We will also meet foreign-language writers who worked in the capital of Małopolska, we’ll explore the winding paths of the rebellious poets. We’ll also visit the nooks and crannies associated with Stanisław Lem – his home and work, as well as places commemorating him.

Admission to all the walks is free, but due to the high interest, prior registration is required.

 

For more information and the fill schedule of the Literary Walks 2016, see here.

On World Book and Copyright Day (23 April), Krakow UNESCO City of Literature launched a resistance movement against not reading. The result? Over a million uses of the new hashtag in two days and over a thousand spontaneous posts from readers from Poland and the world.

“This Literature Deserves Reading” (#TLDRxP) – this was the slogan on the international resistance movement against reading launched by Krakow. The aim of the campaign was to popularise the hashtag with which readers across the world can express their support and recommend other books worth reading. The project authors also wanted to fight against not reading, which is what the original meaning of the TLDR acronym means: “too long, didn’t read”.

On the first day of the campaign, the new hashtag reached nearly a million people on social media (data from Brand24). The campaign was supported by the biggest published in the country, journalists, authors, people of culture and art, popular websites, as well as a wide circle of friends and partners. Among them were Krystyna Janda, Łona, Michał Nogaś, Łukasz Orbitowski, Wojciech Orliński, Dawid Podsiadło, Filip Springer, Marcin Wicha, as well as the Book Institute, Tygodnik Powszechny, Dwutygodnik, TOK FM, Gazeta.pl, Nagłówki nie do ogarnięcia, ASZ Dziennik, CD Projekt, Allegro and Woblink.

 

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The campaign is maintained in the style of a secret resistance movement; therefore, more partners did not indicate the website address in their posts. Internet users who searched for the meaning of the TLDRxP phrase in a search engine, found an ad for the page and learned about the campaign that way. The AdWords campaign is also targeted at users from around the world, who do not know about the campaign, but search for phrases TLDR and TL;DR.

“TLDRxP” also serves as a purchase code for shopping in the online bookstores of the biggest Polish publishes, who offered special discounts for the purposes of the campaign. The project is also supported by bookmarks, used to mark good books and recommend them online.

“Book lovers have not had a universal tool for book recommendation until now”, says Izabela Helbin, Director of the Krakow Festival Office, operator of the Krakow UNESCO City of Literature programme. “We decided that #TLDRxP would become a world symbol of quality and encourage recommending valuable books, as well as reading itself. The enormous reach in the first days of the campaign lets us hope that we will achieve this, and the new, positive meaning of the TLDRxP phrase will permanently replace its old, negative message”.

You can track the battle on the campaign’s website: www.tldrxp.org


The organiser of the campaign is the Krakow Festival Office, operator of the Krakow UNESCO City of Literature programme.
The creative concept was developed by Marcin Sikorski, copywriter and editor of the “Nagłówki nie do ogarnięcia” service.
Visual identification was designed by Daniel Dziuba.
Project coordination was handled by Marcin Sikorski and Jakub Kulasa (Krakow Festival Office.
A full list of Partners and Ambassadors of the campaign can be found on the website.

Wisława Szymborska wrote a couplet about Czesław Miłosz, and when Miłosz learned that Szymborska had been awarded the Nobel Prize, he said with satisfaction: ‘Wasn’t I right?’ During the 5th Miłosz Festival, thanks to partnership with the Wisława Szymborska Foundation, the charm, dignity and irony of two unusual poets will return to Krakow.
‘Much has already been written about Wisława Szymborska’s friendship with Czesław Miłosz, but it is something worth emphasising also with a symbolic gesture: the Wisława Szymborska Award Gala will take place during this year’s Miłosz Festival. Krakow is UNESCO’s City of Literature all year long. On these days, it will be mainly a city of poetry under the patronage of both Nobel-winning awards,’ announced Michał Rusinek, the president of the Wisława Szymborska Foundation.

 

This year the Wisława Szymborska Foundation will grant awards in two categories: for a book of poetry in Polish (100,000 PLN) and for a poetry volume translated into Polish (both the author and the translator will receive 50,000 PLN). The awards will be granted during the formal gala in the Krakow Opera on Saturday the 11th of June, and the winners will meet participants in the Miłosz Festival on the following day.

 

During the Festival, there will be another symbolic meeting of Czesław Miłosz and Wisława Szymborska. On the last day of the Krakow festival of poetry, i.e., Sunday the 12th of June, a biographical documentary film about Szymborska will be presented for the first time. This portrait of the Noble-winning poet is largely composed of historical materials from archives and fragments of interviews with her. The film Napisane życie (Written Life) directed by Marta Węgiel and based on her script, with music composed by Stanisław Radwan, was produced by the Book Institute, the Krakow Festival Office and the Polish Television TVP S.A. The document contains opinions expressed by the poet’s friends, publishers, biographers and collaborators (e.g., Bronisław Maj, Tadeusz Nyczek, Teresa Walas, Wanda Klominkowa, Jerzy Illg, Michał Rusinek, Joanna Szczęsna) and, most importantly, by Szymborska herself. Photographs from the archives of the Wisława Szymborska Foundation will allow the audience to enter the less known private world of the Noble-winning poet. Thanks to recordings from TV archives, it will be possible to listen to her voice, stories of daily experiences that acquire special importance, as well as poems read by her. It is the poems that build the rhythm of this picture – a story of her adolescence years, love, friendship with artists and solitude, and, at the same time, an important reflection on writing and poetry.

Entrance tickets to the film show will be available on the first week of June. Information about distribution will soon be published at: www.miloszfestival.pl.

 

We would like to invite everyone who writes or dreams about writing to Pauza In Garden Club for the open event “Come Party with the Writers”, which will take place on the 23rd of April at 7:00 p.m.  Many attractions are prepared for the participants! On the 24th of April, a literary workshop with Jakub Ćwiek will inaugurate a series of workshops with writers, part of the UNESCO City of Literature Creative Writing Course.

 

A fantasy hero – literary workshop with Jakub Ćwiek 24th of April

Everything starts with a hero – no good book can exist without distinctive characters, and even the best constructed fantasy world is not enough without a good protagonist. Jakub Ćwiek, one of the most popular fantasy authors in Poland, known for his love for classic rock and popular culture, an expert and ardent populariser of comic books on the Polish market, author of a newly released novel Grimm City. Wilk! and 18 others, laureate of Janusz Zajdel Award will show us how to create a perfect protagonist.

The workshop will take place on Sunday, 24th of April at 12:00 p.m.

Cost: 50 PLN
Number of seats: 10

The location will be given out in an e-mail message, sent only to qualified participants.

The registration starts today! Click here.

The workshop with Jakub Ćwiek inaugurates a series of workshops with writers, prepared in cooperation with Maria Kula, an editor, author of many courses and literary workshops, as well as her own Novel Writing School.
The next workshop will take place on the 26th of May, led by Tomek Michniewicz, a journalist, traveller and author of best-selling travelling novels.

You can find out more about the workshops on the new website of the UNESCO City of Literature Creative Writing Course at www.pisz.miastoliteratury.pl

 

Come party with the writers – an open event about writing 23th of April

Imagine a warm, spring evening in Krakow. A café with poufs, a high ceiling and a white bar slowly fills up. There are many guests, all are different, but they all share one thing: they want to write. They would like to write. Writing is something important for them, they are interested with it.

The music turns off and the café slowly fills with voices of writers, who wrote their own novels for the past six months. They really need your applause!

And then, 8 great women stand before the audience. They had to overcome many obstacles in order to write. Some were small. Some weren’t. When one of them says “I stopped cleaning my house in order to have time for writing”, you feel the strength and freedom of choice, you know you can do it too. You can write. When another one tells the audience that she used to think she couldn’t write and now she just does it, you feel growing sympathy towards her. Another writer will tell about the pleasure of writing her novels, and another one who was bothered by her character until she sat down and started writing.

This is how Maria Kula, an editor and organiser of writing courses and workshops, describes the event. We have prepared a series of literary workshops with writers in cooperation with her. We can assure you that many attractions will await you on this day. The programme comprises reading fragments of novels by the participants of the Novel Writing School, inspiring stories of authors, meeting with the editor of the Wydawnictwo Literackie Publishing House, searching for our own stories and of course long discussions about writing!

Partners of the event: Krakow Festival Office, operator of the Krakow UNESCO City of Literature programme and Wydawnictwo Literackie publishing house.

Come party with the writers – 23 April at 7:00 p.m., Pauza In Garden

Find out more here.

 


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We would also like to invite you to a Used Book Fair at St Mary Magdalene Square and the Weekend in Bookstores – the events will take place on 23-24 April as part of the World Book and Copyright Day celebrations.

You can find the detailed programme of the event here.

The Award Committee has nominated the following authors for the Wisława Szymborska Award this year: Jakub Kornhauser for Drożdżownia (WBPiCAK Pozmań), Edward Pasewicz for Och, Mitochondria (Wydawnictwo EMG), Marta Podgórnik for Zawsze (Biuro Literackie), Joanna Roszak for Tego dnia (WBPiCAK Poznań) and Marciń Świetlicki for Delta Dietla (Wydawnictwo EMG). This year, the award will be given out for the 4th time.

Starting this year, the award will be given out in two categories – for a work originally written in Polish and for a translated volume. Thus, the award will be granted to a Polish poet, as well as to a foreign poet (and their translators). The Award Committee, chaired by Joanna Orska, consisted of Andrej Khadanovich (Belarus), Bernhardt Hartmann (Germany), William Martin (USA-Germany), Abel Murcia Soriano (Spain), Marian Stala (Poland) and Dorota Walczak-Delanois (Poland-Belgium).

The Wisława Szymborska Award 2016 will be given out during the 5th Miłosz Festival – the largest poetry event taking place in Krakow. Combining the Award with the Miłosz Festival is a reference to the Meetings of Poets of the East and West, which were organised in the 1990s under patronage of both Nobelists.

“Kraków aims at bringing literary events together at one time. This is why the Miłosz Festival, Children’s Literature Festival, Wisława Szymborska Award ceremony and the Night of Poetry will all take place in the same month – in June. We could say that June will be the most literary month in Krakow this year, we also hope that it will become a new trend, which will last in the future”, said Andrzej Kulig, deputy Mayor of Krakow responsible for Social Policy, Culture and Promotion.

This year, 211 books were nominated for the Szymborska Award, including several translations. The award amounts to 200 000 PLN – shared between the authors and the translator.

About the nominees:

 

Drozdzownia J. Kornhauser

Jakub Kornhauser rediscovers the language we us to describe the world. Using static descriptions, which are an important part of Drożdżownia, he creates a world filled with a sense of unease, as if a disaster was waiting to happen. Typical activities, things and meanings all compose a dramatic image, which only seems to be coherent. The energy contained in them resembles the lines in paintings by Chaim Soutine, Paul Klee and Egon Schiele, whom the author often references.

 

och-mitochondria-Pasewicz

The poetry of Edward Pasewicz seems to be focused on testing possibilities given by the language. In Och, Mitochondria, the corporeality understood as a sign and observed in many ways and on many levels comes to the fore. In his poems, the body is observed on a microbiological and genetic level, but the perspective of social and political life remains as important for the author.

 

Zawsze M.Pogornik

Zawsze by Marta Podgórnik is a strong, feminist voice, characterised by its personal and intimate tone. The position of woman is the matter and strength of her poetry. She radicalises various popular and traditional forms, such as a cabaret song, a ballad or a fairy tale, filling them with directness, cruelty and deep, strong emotions.

 

Joanna Roszak Tego dnia

Joanna Roszak, a poet and author of books on poetry and literary research focuses on the borderline between the Polish, German and Jewish literature. In Tego dnia, the themes connected with death, its nature and consequences seem to be the most interesting. Her protagonists are often animals – dogs, cats, birds. Her poetry stems from avant-garde traditions, it resembles normal speech, but adds surprising twists to it. Roszak remains in ellipsis, understatement, she suspends the sense and gives us an opportunity to branch out its meanings.

 

Delta Dietla M. Swietlicki

In Marcin Świetlicki’s Delta Dietla we can see the recurring themes, used in his poetry before: the city, poems about literature, which the poet himself calls “pious”. Świetlicki uses the poetics of a protest-song, although in a perverse way, as he uses hexameter in his works. At the same time, a personal theme appears in his poems – death of his father and mourning, as well as having to fulfil the responsibilities towards the dead.

 

On the 11th of June 2016 during the official gala in Krakow Opera we will find out who will receive the Award. We will also get to know the winner of the Wisława Szymborska Award for a volume translated into the Polish language.  

Organiser: Wisława Szymborska Foundation

Partners: Krakow Festival Office, Kraków UNESCO City of Literature, City of Literature Foundation, Miłosz Festival, Matras Bookstores.

The competition is co-financed by the Ministry of Polish Culture and Heritage. The project is co-financed by the Krakow Municipality.

The rapid rise of temperatures in the spring is conducive not only to walks and cleaning out our wardrobes. It’s also a sure fire sign of the start of the literary season!

On the 23rd and 24th of April, join us for the celebration of World Book and Copyright Day and the 15th edition of the “Book and Rose” Małopolskie Book Days. The idea for the campaign comes from Spain, from where it was brought to our region in 2002 on the initiative of the Marshal of the Małopolskie Voivodeship. Since 1930, Book Day has been an official holiday in the land of Cervantes, and the streets of many Spanish cities, including Barcelona, transform into big open-air book markets. This year, the Krakow Festival Office – the coordinator of the Krakow UNESCO City of Literature programme – has joined the organisers of the “Book and Rose” campaign and, along with the Office of the Marshal of the Małopolskie Voivodeship and the Voivodeship Public Library in Krakow, has planned a series of weekend activities.

The Cozy Used Book Fair will take place on Saturday and Sunday in Krakow’s St Mary Magdalene Square. Classics of world literature, historical fiction and popular science books, comics and English-language literature at affordable prices will be presented by booksellers and antique book dealers, including the historical bookstore Szafa Pełna Książek, FanKomiks, Massolit Books, the antique bookshop 9wrota and Abecadło. The Voivodeship Public Library in Krakow stand will offer inexpensive books withdrawn from the collection. The Fair will also feature florists’ stands with roses; there will be somewhere to drink coffee, eat ice cream and snack on roasted chestnuts, or you can drop by the nearby Księgarnia Bona for some delicious madeleines – the most literary biscuits in the world. Every book purchased at the fair will also include a temporary rose tattoo as a gift!

World Book Day also includes intensive event programmes in bookstores and libraries. Join us for an evening that starts off the Independent Bookstore Festival at De Revolutionibus, which will include workshops for children and adults, a lecture by Prof. Jerzy Stelmach, as well as an inaugural meeting of the Discussion Reading Clubs of the Poemat Foundation at the Bona bookstore. On the weekend of the 23rd and 24th April, the “Medal-winning Krakow bookstores” (Krakowskie księgarnie na medal) project of the City of Literature Foundation will also be inaugurated. As part of the inauguration, known and liked people will take their place behind the counters at selected bookstores for a few hours, recommending their favourite books and helping customers to choose the most interesting ones.

The Voivodeship Public Library in Krakow invites you to Rajska Street for a meeting with Anna Dziewit-Meller, the literary urban game “In search of the legend of the dragon”, as well as workshops for children titled “Is Star Wars just a film?” The library will also be the site of the special edition of the Second Life of a Book exchange. Krakow’s Planty Park will see two bicycles of the Flying Reading Room to meet with readers. On that special weekend, everyone who borrows a book from one of the bicycles will receive a temporary rose tattoo as a gift. We also invite you to join the Shakespeare stage workshops with Krzysztof Stawowy (World Book Day coincides with the 400th anniversaries of the English playwright’s Miguel de Cervantes’ deaths).

The “Book and Rose” campaign serves as a reminder that books can be an interesting idea for a present. Events planned as part of the campaign, including the fair in St Mary Magdalene’s Square, highlight the rich tradition of the second life of a book in Krakow and Małopolska – the cradle of the Polish language and printing, a place of a particular concentration of the publishing sector and the most prestigious antique auctions, which are all part of the Krakow – UNESCO City of Literature programme, which aims to protect and support the various branches of the local book market. It is in antique shops and city fairs where we can come across valuable literature, frequently not republished in the Polish book market, which is oriented on new books.

Stressing the role of the book as a special gift, on Friday morning, people arriving to Małopolska on the Kraków-Balice route of the Koleje Małopolskie railway line will receive book gifts. The action will be the announcement of the weekend events in Małopolska.

 


 

A DETAILED PROGRAMME OF THE CAMPAIGN CAN BE FOUND HERE AND AT WWW.KSIAZKAIROZA.PL.


 

 

See you there!

 

Organisers:

Małopolskie VoivodeshipVoivodeship Public Library in Krakow – a Cultural Institution of the Małopolskie Voivodeship, Krakow Festival Office – Operator of the Krakow – UNESCO City of Literature Programme

Partners:

The Book InstitutePolish Chamber of BooksellersKarnetLubimy CzytaćO.plShakespeare LivesCervantes InstituteCopernicus Center FoundationPoemat FoundationCity of Literature Foundation

Felix Kaputu, PhD, a writer, scientist, literary scholar, social activist and grantee of the Fulbright Programme scholarship and the University of California scholarship from Congo, became another writer who was granted refuge in the City of Krakow under the ICORN (International Cities of Refuge Network) programme.He will stay in Krakow till the end of the year, and his stay is organised by the City of Krakow, the Krakow Festival Office, and the Villa Decius Association.

Born in Congo in 1959, Felix Kaputu is a specialist in African studies, art and philosophy.His academic work has also encompassed the topics of gender, African mythology and literature.He has done research and lectured, among others, in the USA, Japan and Belgium.In 2003,he received a scholarship from the Fulbright Foundation and the University of California.He is the author of 6 books and almost 60 publications on topics such as the difficult situation of women in Africa, HIV and AIDS.

In May 2005, Kaputu was arrested without a warrant by the Agency for National Security (ANR). He was accused of being responsible for the secession movement of 20,000 soldiers in the Katanga province, gun smuggling and encouraging students to rebel.According to unofficial information, he was to be sentenced to 30 years of imprisonment or death.He spent 10 days in prison, where he was refused food and threatened with death.He witnessed the use of physical violence and mysterious disappearances of other prisoners.Transferred to the Makala Penitentiary and Reeducation Centre in Kinshasa, he was eventually released thanks to the intervention of Amnesty International and efforts of the mass media and fellow scientists.Having been freed, he was under constant surveillance, which made it impossible for him to resume teaching.In 2006 he left the country as a grantee of the Scholars at Risk scholarship.

 

Krakow: City of Literature, City of Refuge

The Polish city joined the ICORN network in 2011, the Year of Czesław Miłosz, and was the first member of this network in the region of Eastern & Central Europe. ICORN, which offers refuge to writers and human rights advocates who cannot freely live and work in their own countries because of political repressions, was formed in 2005 in Norway. One of the initiators of this network was one of the most persecuted writers of the 20th century, Salman Rushdie, whose Satanic Verses led to violent protests in the Islamic world and led Ayatollah Khomeini to issue a famous fatwa, a sentence obliging every true Muslim to kill the writer, on him.

When Krakow joined ICORN, the organisation’s authorities noted that the Polish city is an important and entirely justified candidate that would serve as an excellent example for other cities in this part of Europe. Helge Lunde, Director of the ICORN network, noted that thanks to cultural traditions and a rich artistic and literary life, Krakow would be an ideal place of refuge and inspiration for persecuted artists.

It considered the city’s geopolitical location as equally significant, calling Krakow a “Gateway to the East,” which is important from the perspective of ICORN’s interest in helping numerous writers in Poland’s eastern neighbours. Since then, Krakow has hosted five writers: Maria Amelie (whose real name is Madina Salamova, from Northern Osetia, now in Norway), Kareem Amer (Egypt, now in Norway), Mostafa Zamaniniya (Iran), Lavon Barszczeuski (Belarus) and Aslı Erdoğan (Turkey).

ICORN creates a continually growing network of over 50 cities, and its activity is one of the strongest voices in defence of freedom of speech and freedom to one’s convictions as well as international solidarity. During 10 years of its activity, ICORN has found temporary places of refuge for several hundred writers, intellectuals, bloggers, and human rights activists. The network does not only coordinate a “shelter cities” programme, but it also cooperates with the governments of various countries and many organisations around the world, thus very tangibly fighting for freedom of speech and human rights.

International co-operation within ICORN has a strategic position in the Krakow UNESCO City of Literature programme, whose development strategy encompasses 10 thematic areas, including the development of ties between literature and human rights.

 

ICORN

Poetry of the journey, poetry of exile

Soon, Krakow will once again be the place for an exceptional meeting with poetry. The 5th edition of the Miłosz Festival will take place from the 9th to the 12th of June, gathering the most prominent poets – artists from Poland and abroad who speak various languages and hold various worldviews – in the UNESCO City of Literature, along with literary translators, philosophers, intellectuals and lovers of poetry. As every year, the Festival will be held under a title taken from the work of its Patron. The point of reference for the theme of this year’s edition is the title of the volume of poetry by Miłosz, Road-side Dog, as well as broad associations with travel. Outstanding artists, representing various continents, cultures and languages will invite audiences for shared poetry readings and discussions of the various forms of contemporary nomadism. Among the artists visiting Krakow will be Adonis (Syria and France), Breyten Breytenbach (South Africa and France), Ashur Etwebi (Libya and Norway) Stefan Hertmans (Belgium), Michael Ondaatje (Sri Lanka and Canada) and Olga Sedakova (Russia).

“The title of this year’s edition of the Miłosz Festival once again refers to the work of its Patron”, said Olga Brzezińska, President of the City of Literature Foundation. “It’s fascinating how current and alive the work of Czesław Miłosz still is, serving as an inexhaustible source of inspiration and providing intellectual nourishment for future generations. Road-side Dog, one of the poet’s most personal books, loses none of its freshness: wanderings, travels and migrations – both the voluntary and those marked by the trauma of exile or escape – are all problems very close to contemporary people. We want to talk about them during the Miłosz Festival, and poetry gives us a unique opportunity to touch what is important.

The city’s flagship programme, grown from the tradition of the European Capital of Culture Krakow 2000, take place on an annual basis since 2015. This decision was influenced by the significance that the City of Krakow, the Krakow Festival Office, the City of Literature Foundation and the Book Institute attach to the poetic identity of the UNESCO City of Literature.

“We want the festival, in cooperation with the Children’s Literature Foundation and the Wisława Szymborska Foundation, to create an important message for all audiences of literature, but to also have a strong voice in the debate on the future of readership in Poland”, says Izabela Helbin, Director of the Krakow Festival Office. “We are certain that in June, all of Krakow will live and breathe poetry, and the Festival will become a place where there will be substantial and discussions and valuable poetry meetings in an excellent atmosphere”.

We travel a lot – sometimes forced by circumstances, sometimes exiled from the place where we grew up, sometimes spurred on by a curiosity of the world. We explore new spaces, absorb them, but we also tame what is alien. Quite often, it turns out that the real discoveries await us just around the corner, emerging from the nearby trees. This is what Miłosz’s Road-side dog is like – a book focused on the small and marginal, sometimes completely unnoticed. But these fragments of everyday life, the discoveries of ordinary ramblings, can become an excuse for a reflection on one of the most significant experiences of modernity. It contains both the wandering, the travels, the joy of great holidays, and the trauma of exile, emigration, moving, homelessness and the need to seek a (new) homeland. It revels the complicated relationships of people and places, but also languages – themes that are also present in other texts of the Nobel laureate: essays “Notes on Exile” and “To Be an Emigrant”.

Opening a space for reflection on the dilemmas of modernity, individual liberties and freedom of speech, the festival from the start takes on the problem of crossing geographical and spiritual borders. As every year, our guests – Polish poets, as well as artists from many parts of the world – will read poems that deal with the idea of taming the world in different ways. They will also talk about poetic journeys, about the search for and scattering of identity, about wanderings in physical space as well as the spaces of language. They will speak about inner migration, imprisonment, persecution, refugee status, about the role of the native and acquired languages, about the experience of encountering various cultures.

The festival will most certainly leave a lasting mark on the Polish literary life: for the third time, it will be accompanied by a special series of publications – new editions of poetry by invited foreign guests, specially prepared for the occasion thanks to the work of organisers and leading Polish publishers.

Among the most important guests, we should mention Michael Ondaatje, winner of the Booker Prize for The English Patient, but above all (which he himself considers to be a more important part of his identity and body of work) an outstanding poet, who has long since achieved the status of a classic. The festival audience will certainly enjoy the first book presentation of Ondaatje’s poetry in Poland, specially prepared for the Festival – Zbieracz cynamonu [The Cinammon Peeler] (Znak, 2016).

Also visiting Krakow will be Adonis, known to Festival participants, who combines intensive literary work (he has published 23 volumes of poetry) with political activism and work on behalf of the Arabic culture. For the first time, a collection of his poetry will be published in Poland – Witając wiatr i drzewa [Welcoming the wind and trees] (Anagram, 2016) – and will premiere at the Festival.

Another illustrious guest of the Festival – Breyten Breytenbach – is one of the most respected Afrikaans-language artists – writer, poet, essayist and painter. His opposition to apartheid cost him a prison sentence and exile from his homeland. It is difficult to list all the literary awards he has received – the list of the most important ones contains more than thirty.

Visiting from Belgium will be Stefan Hertmans, who writes in Dutch. His works, translated into many languages, are considered masterpieces of Dutch and Flemish poetry. He is known to Polish readers from his best-selling novel War and Turpentine, and this time, he will show himself as a poet during meetings with authors and thanks to the first selection of his poems in Polish, prepared for the Festival by the Marginesy publishing house (2016).

Olga Sedakova, outstanding poet and translator of European poetry, laureate of the Vlaldimir Solovyov Prize, will present her work in Russian, which many consider to be uniquely created for poetry. Thanks to the forthcoming book with Polish translations (Kolegium Europy Wschodniej, 2016), participants of the Festival will have the opportunity to meet with Russian culture and the language of Velimir Khlebnikov, to whom the writer makes references.

The last of the foreign guests of the Festival, Ashur Etwebi, is one of the best-known Libyan poets and writers, organiser of cultural life in Libya after the fall of the Muammar Gaddafi’s regime and co-organiser of literary festivals. Etwebi currently resides in Trondheim as part of the ICORN programme (which Krakow is also a part of), created for writers persecuted in their countries of origin. His presence at the Festival will be enhanced by a volume of poetry specially prepared for the occasion by the Mikołowski Institute.

Individual meetings will be another opportunity to listen to the poems of our guests and talk about their experiences in the space of the world and language. Festival debates, with the participation of thinkers, writers and artists, will be dedicated to discussion of the different dimensions of wandering and “road-side-ness”, beginning with global migration, through travel as a creative practice, to translation, which is the space for the journey of works, words and ideas. Meetings with Polish poets will focus on poetic journeys, (Agnieszka Mirahina, Michał Książek, Tadeusz Pióro, Przemysław Owczarek), new voices in Polish poetry (Barbara Klicka, Aldona Kopkiewicz, Piotr Przybyła, Kacper Bartczak) and the poetic tension between words and the moment of silence (Piotr Matywiecki, Joanna Roszak, Julia Szychowiak, Jerzy Kronhold).

In addition to poetic evenings, meetings with authors, discussions and literary translation and criticism workshops, the Festival programme will also include a variety of other propositions. Among others, there will be a remarkable exhibition dedicated to Zuzanna Ginczanka, which will present the life of the Polish poet of Jewish origin, the star of the interwar Warsaw bohemians. Ginczanka was one of the most talented, yet underrated female writers of the interwar period. The exhibition is an attempt to extract traces of her thinking and art to compare them with the works of contemporary artists, creating an interesting dialogue between eras. The exhibition will be hosted in a new festival location: the Museum of History of Photography.

Also included in the Miłosz Festival will be Jazzformance, a spectacle combining the poetry of Witold Wirpsza with jazz. Wirpsza’s language experiments were an inspiration for jazz musicians Marcin Oleś, Bartłomiej Oleś, Piotr Orzechowski and actor Radosław Krzyżowski, whose art is based on the game of associations. Wirpsza is worth “discovering” also because the scale of his work is inversely proportional to the position that the poet, formally sharing the level of Karpowicz and Barańczak, occupies in our literary culture.

The Festival will also be part of the celebration of the Year of Shakespeare, thanks to the performance of extraordinary musical compositions written for Shakespeare’s sonnets – the effect of the work of Stanisław Soyka and the Cracow Singers formation, presenting the premienie of Shakespeare a cappella.

The festival is organised by the City of Krakow, the Krakow Festival Office and the City of Literature Foundation, and its programme is drafted collectively together with the Advisory Board, which consists of Krzysztof Czyżewski, Magdalena Heydel, Jerzy Illg, Jerzy Jarniewicz, Zofia Król, Marek Radziwon, Tomasz Różycki and Abel Murcia Soriano. The high quality of the programme is ensured by the Honorary Committee, which is composed of Aleksander Fiut, Julia Hartwig, Robert Hass, Ryszard Krynicki, Anthony Miłosz, Adam Pomorski, Aleksander Schenker, Tomas Venclova and Adam Zagajewski

The Festival can also boast its affiliation with excellent partners. Apart from the National Museum in Krakow, the list includes the Wisława Szymborska Foundation. During this year’s edition of the Festival, an award dedicated to the poet will be presented during an official gala. Moreover, a premiere screening of Marta Węgiel’s Napisane życie (A Written Life), a movie devoted to the artist’s life and creations, will also take place during the festival.

The Festival is returning to its roots. The presence of the Szymborska Award during the Miłosz Festival reconstructs a very important tradition – the Meetings of Poets of the East and West, which took place in Krakow in the 1990s under the auspices of both Nobelists.

“The friendship between Wisława Szymborska and Czesław Miłosz has been described thoroughly in the past, but it is also worthwhile to remind everyone about it with a symbolic gesture – the Wisława Szymborska Award gala will take place during this year’s edition of the Miłosz Festival. This year, Krakow bears the title of the UNESCO City of Literature, and for a few days it will become a city of poetry, under the patronage of two Nobel Prize-winning poets”, said Michał Rusinek, Head of the Szymborska Foundation.

There will also be an abundance of events for the youngest readers – the celebration of poetry will be accompanied by the Children’s Literature Festival with its diverse and interesting programme.

“Once again during the Miłosz Festival, literature is also going to amuse the youngest readers. This year we are going to look for things which seem to be lost for good, we will learn how to win a Nobel Prize, we will – reluctantly – leave Krakow to see other cities of the world, such as London, Rome, Lailonia and Warsaw, and everything will end with a great ball”, said Łukasz Dębski, Director of the Children’s Literature Festival.

 

Road-side dog – the name describes a creator-vagrant, but also a person who curiously observes the visitors. Having said that, we would like to invite you to come to the Festival in order to see the contemporary dilemmas, problems and ourselves from this perspective, using an exceptional language of ideas – poetry.

Find out more about the Festival and the upcoming events soon at: www.miloszfestival.pl

 

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