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On the 22nd of October (Saturday), Krakow will celebrate the third anniversary of becoming the UNESCO City of Literature. On this occasion, the operator of the UNESCO programme in Krakow – the Krakow Festival Office – has prepared some special attractions. Join the celebrations!
- Letters – once again.
On the upcoming Saturday, we are once again going to see the large format letters reading KRAKOW UNESCO CITY OF LITERATURE in the Main Market Square as part of the anniversary celebrations. This way we want to once again emphasise the literary identity of the city. The letters will also have a new, refreshed look, referring to the works of the Polish school of illustration, presented at the ongoing exhibition Snakes, daggers and rose petals at the Art Bunker Gallery. They were designed and made by the visual artist from the Krakow Academy of Fine Arts, an illustrator, graphic artist and author of comic books – Agnieszka Piksa – whose works are exhibited in the popular Bunker, as part of an event accompanying this year’s Conrad Festival.
On that day, you will also have an opportunity to meet the animator dressed up as a dragon, who will give out commemorative balloons to the lucky residents and tourists.
- The Krakow Book Market in Powiśle
The celebration of good second-hand literature – a special edition of the Krakow Book Market will take place in the complex at Powiśle 11 from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., as part of the celebrations. The visitors will be able to take advantage of the offers presented by Szafa Pełna Książek – a bookshop, cafe and antique book store from Podgórze, 9 Wrota and Antykwariat Abecadło,Sofa Literacka from Katowice and booksellers from the Market Hall. It is worth bringing the whole family – there will be comics drawing workshops for kids, and a demonstration and lecture on emigration publishers for the older readers. Everyone is also invited to the neighbouring Metaforma Cafe, where you can receive a 10% when you show a book bought at the market.
- Conrad Festival – starting on Monday!
The celebrations of the 3rd anniversary of receiving the UNESCO City of Literature title all foreshadow the 8th Conrad Festival, starting on Monday in Krakow. This year’s festival meetings, scheduled to take place in the unique space of the Czeczotka House at the corner of Wiślna and Św. Anny streets, will be attended by an impressive team of writers from all over the world, including Michael Cunningham, author of The Hours, an outstanding Australian writer – Richard Flanagan, the youngest Booker Prize laureate – Eleanor Catton, Géza Röhrig, a Hungarian writer, poet and actor performing the leading role in Son of Saul, as well as Samar Yazbek, Michel Faber, Andrzej Stasiuk, Artur Domosławski, Wojciech Górecki and many more.
Find out more at:
- Renewed Codes of the City
On the 22nd-23th of October, the replacement of plaques on literary benches scattered around the Planty Park will begin. Over 150 plaques commemorating the most outstanding writers connected with Krakow and the selected guests of literary festivals will now have an updated design. Every plaque has a unique QR code, allowing to access multimedia content connected with each and every writer: fragments of texts, archive recordings, a short biography and a photograph.
Living in the UNESCO City of Literature – more about the title
The Creative Cities Network is a UNESCO programme launched in 2004 in order to promote the economic, social and cultural development of the cities, based on the principles of creativity and sustainable development. UNESCO distinguishes cities with the Creative City titles in many categories, including music, literature, film, gastronomy, artistic crafts and folk art, design and visual arts. The capital of Małopolska received the City of Literature title in 2013 as the very first Slavic city and the second non-English speaking city in the world. UNESCO appreciated not only the centuries-long heritage of the city of Szymborska, Miłosz, Lem, Mrożek and Kantor, but also the status of a leading Polish academic and intellectual centre, the fact that Krakow has been hosting the leading Polish literary festivals – the Conrad Festival and the Miłosz Festival, the fact that the Book Institute is based in the city, the largest Book Fair in Poland take place here, and that the city is characterised by concentration of the publishing and book selling sector.
Krakow Miasto Literatury UNESCO, Fot. Tomasz Wiech
Since then, Literary Krakow has been on a new path. The long-term strategy of promoting readership, supporting writers and the local book market, entered into the application prepared by literary groups of the city was adopted by the resolution of the City Council. Additionally, the city programme for developing cultural life in book stores and a strategy of supporting debuts, comprising the Conrad Award for the best prose debut established in 2015 was announced, along with the UNESCO City of Literature Creative Writing Course. The process of combining libraries in Krakow and supporting the activities of local branches is currently ongoing. Moreover, as part of the Czytaj PL (Read PL) campaign, a network of free e-book libraries took over the streets of six Polish cities last year, the Conrad Festival and the International Book Fair break the popularity records each year, the Miłosz Festival takes place annually, along with the Wisława Szymborska Award Gala, symbolically renewing the tradition of the meetings of Poets of the East and the West, initiated by the two Nobelists. Krakow was also given reins of the Cities of Literature network, presiding over the works of the Steering Committee, which approves new applications for the network.
The role of literature is sometimes similar to that of a map. While showing the reality, it has to distance itself from it and cannot show it in a 1:1 scale. On Sunday, Géza Röhrig, David Van Reybrouck and Grażyna Plebanek will use the Conrad Festival as an opportunity to discuss the process of literary mapping of the world and human experiences. The day will end with the Conrad Award Gala, during which the audience will learn the name of the best debut author of the year.
Maps, both literary and real ones, allow us to traverse the world. This is also what the participants of the Festival are going to do on Sunday – they are going to visit Congo, Israel and travel back in time to Bulgakov’s Russia. The meetings around the two literary awards will allow them to set new orientation points in the vast space of literature.
The art of translation calls for selectivity. It is not always possible to translate everything, and sometimes some meanings have to stay hidden. Thus, the process of translation is similar to making one’s own map, offering an alternative way to navigate through a text in another language. The new polemic translation of Bulgakov’s Master and Margarita will be discussed by Grzegorz, Leokadia and Igor Przebinda during a meeting with Tomasz Fiałkowski.
David Van Reybrouck, a writer of historical prose, both fiction and scholarly works, comes from the Belgian part of Flanders. In his work, he focuses on Congo – its culture, as well as political and social issues. In 2015, his famous book Congo: The Epic History of a People was published in Poland as Kongo. Opowieść o zrujnowanym kraju. The book itself was the fruit of his travels, observations and in-depth scientific research. The author asks us to once again think about colonialism. During the meeting titled “Whose Africa?”, Grażyna Plebanek, David Van Reybrouck and Maciej Jakubowiak will discuss colonialism.
In spite of the fact that written word played a significant role in the history of Israel, many people do not realise that the country has very diverse literary traditions. The next meeting will take the audience of the Conrad Festival to the world of Israeli literature, mostly unknown in Poland. The invited guests -Eshkol Nevo, Yishai Sarid, Zeruya Shalev – will come to us as emissaries, whose role will be to show us the specifics of one of the most interesting areas of the world from the literary standpoint. The discussion will be conducted by Karolina Szymaniak.
During Conrad Festival, Sunday is definitely the day of awards. One of the meetings will be devoted to the art of Alain Mabanckou, a writer born in the Democratic Republic of Congo, who in his books deals with the problems of black people in Africa, as well as the African diaspora around the world. Mabanckou was the laureate of the last year’s edition of the Polish edition of the Goncourt List – the Polish Choice, under the patronage of the Goncourt Academy. The event will be conducted by Olga Stanisławska.
The day will end with the long-awaited Conrad Award Gala, combined with a master class conducted by Géza Röhrig. During the Gala, the Conrad Award for the best début of 2015 will be presented. Among the nominees for the Award there are Marek Adamik, Magdalena Kicińska, Weronika Murek, Żanna Słoniowska and Tomasz Wiśniewski. You can cast your vote on the Festival’s website.
Read more at www.conradfestival.com
Thomas Frognall Dibdin said about bibliomania that it is “the most understanding and worthy of distinction of all types of madness”. On the 22nd of October, on the 3rd anniversary of Krakow being granted the title of UNESCO City of Literature, all bibliomaniacs can count on particular understanding – join us for a special edition of the Krakow Book Fair!
The popular KIK series, miniature editions of Wydawnictwa Filmowe i Artystyczne, classic comics, pre-war historic books and numerous Cracoviana – the Krakow Book Market is a unique opportunity to catch up on reading and be reminded that a good book has no expiry date.
The Market will run from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m. Presenting their offer will be: Szafa Pełna Książek – the historic bookstore-cafe and antique bookshop from the Podgórze district, antique bookshops 9 Wrota and Abecadło, the hobby bookshop Fan Komiks from Batorego Street, Sofa Literacka from Katowice, and booksellers from the Market Hall.It is worth bringing the whole family – there will be comics drawing workshops for kids, and a demonstration and lecture on emigration publishers for the older readers. Everyone is also invited to the neighbouring Metaforma Cafe, where you can receive a 10% when you show a book bought at the market.
The event is a continuation of the September market on the roof of the pavilion at Powiśle 11 and the April event in Plac Św. Marii Magdaleny, organised on the occasion of World Book and Copyright Day. In the new year, we will be back outside, with an even more interesting offer and on an even bigger scale!
It might seem that our senses objectively inform us about everything that happens around us. Art, however, proves that everyone can see, feel or hear differently, and experience their meetings with literature in various ways. The Saturday meetings of the Conrad Festival will be devoted to senses. Their impact on artistic creations will be discussed in Krakow by Michael Cunningham, Richard Flanagan, Eleanor Catton and Marek Bieńczyk. During the evening screening of Son of Saul we will also have an opportunity to listen to Géza Röhrig himself – the writer who won an Oscar for his performance.
“I need to feel that I live in a crowded world, full of life”, said Michael Cunningham in one of his interviews, and added that he is not a loner and needs many stimuli in order to be able to work. “In this world, we walk on the roof of hell gazing at flowers…” – this poem appears in The Narrow Road to the Deep North by Richard Flanagan. Both will join us for a meeting on Saturday. The author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Hours and the Booker Prize laureate will tell us about the sensual experience as significant for life and art, driving them and often allowing to survive the most difficult moments. The meeting will be conducted by Magda Heydel, who will also ask them whether the language which they both speak gives them a sense of shared cultural space.
The opportunity to take a different look at reality will be presented to the participants of another meeting – this time with Eleanor Catton. The Luminaries is the story of our passions. Catton wrote her story of the gold rush in New Zealand when she was 28 and it brought her a Booker Prize – thus making her the youngest laureate of this literary distinction. The book will be soon brought to the silver screen by the BBC. The meeting is made even more interesting by the fact that Catton does not shy away from social activism – in 2015, during a festival in India, she caused a scandal, when she accused New Zealand’s political elites of greed and lack of interest in culture.
The next meeting will be based on About Them Here – an anthology of sketches on translation and language, printed in Literatura na Świecie, selected and edited by Piotr Sommer. Without the work of translators, not only Conrad Festival would cease to exist, but also any other literary festival in the world, because it is them who enable the majority of readers to experience literature. Yet, words are not always willing to get in line, and meanings are often lost in translations. This will be the subject of discussion for Zofia Król, Piotr Sommer, Małgorzata Szczurek and Marcin Szuster
Conrad Festival is created by people in the very first place, and because of them it is a true celebration of culture. Marek Bieńczyk, who has been with the festival from its conception, will be a guest of the Ball, a meeting devoted to memories and surprises, conducted by Piotr Sommer.
These are just a few of the attractions waiting for you on the day devoted to subjective experiencing of the world and sensual cognition. It is worth taking part in the meetings not only to see the writers, but also to experience what the creators see and hear in the cacophony of voices around us, and feel what they taste and touch.
Read more at www.conradfestival.com
The City Council of Krakow has adopted a resolution providing free public transit for participants of the International Book Fair in Krakow and the Conrad Festival, who have a valid ticket to the Fair between the 27th and 30th of October. The idea of this special discount for readers was put forward by Mayor Jacek Majchrowski, in favour of the joint initiative of the Book Fair in Krakow, the Krakow Festival Office – the Operator of the Krakow UNESCO City of Literature programme and the Councillors from the Culture and Historical Protection Committee.
“Being a Cracovian means a special attitude towards books. Cracovians openly declare their commitment to literature, they read a lot, visit the Conrad Festival in droves, and the Krakow Book Fair beats attendance records year after year”, said Krakow Mayor Jacek Majchrowski. “I believe that with this year’s 20th edition of the Fair and the culmination of yet another edition of the Conrad Festival, with a star-studded pantheon of prominent writers and intellectuals, we have an excellent context to emphasise that the manifestation of reading attitudes in Krakow – the UNESCO City of Literature – is very important for us. In this way, we not only popularise the book as a cultural good and encourage people to visit the Book Fair and the Conrad Festival, but we also promote sustainable public transit, the high quality of which is something we can be very proud of”.
The discount will be effective from the 27th to the 30th of October. Free travel on city trams and buses will be available to passengers who hold an admission ticket to the Book Fair. The discount will benefit primarily readers travelling between the EXPO Kraków International Exhibition and Congress Centre at Galicyjska 9, where the Book Fair will take place, and the meetings of the Conrad Festival, taking place at the Czeczotka Palace (the old Centrum Gallery, Wiślna 1). The solution will help to relieve crowding on streets and in car parks, and is intended to be an incentive for residents to actively spend the most literary week of the year.
“We are very pleased that the joint initiative of the Krakow Festival Office and the Book Fair in Krakow was positively received by the Mayor and the Council. The resolution of the City Council on free travel on public transit for holders of an admission ticket to our fair is a very important message for the residents of the city and readers from all over Poland, showing the Councillors’ concern for the level of readership and promotion of literature. Making it easier for participants of the 20th anniversary edition of the International Book Fair in Krakow to take part in the most interesting events during the culmination of the Conrad Festival is a gesture worthy of a UNESCO City of Literature”, said Grażyna Grabowska, President of the Fair in Krakow.
The action was supported by Krakow councillors, particularly Anna Szybist and Małgorzata Jantos. The originators of the initiative have not ruled out its continuation in subsequent years. Through this action, Krakow can continue one of the most original campaigns to promote public transit in our country, in conjunction with a broad promotion of reading.
fot. Tomasz Wiech for Krakow Festival Office
They occur everywhere where people professing different values come together and open a dialogue. They show that not everything is subject to negotiation and establishing common meanings is not always peaceful. “Tensions” – this will be Friday’s theme at the Conrad Festival. The guests of the day will include Richard Flanagan, Samar Yazbek, Szczepan Twardoch, Jadwiga Staniszkis and Inga Iwasiów, while Michael Cunningham will deliver the introduction before the screening of The Hours.
What are the results of tensions and how do they manifest in literature? Do they lead to the release of creative energy, or the contrary – the spread of destruction and nothing else? Some tensions become evident immediately – there is an explosion of an unexpected reaction – while others remain hidden and accumulate for many years. Courage is needed to take them on. This was the case with the story that became the subject of The Narrow Road to the Deep North, a novel written over the course of 12 years. At some point, Richard Flanagan admits, it became clear to him that if he didn’t write this book, he would never create anything else – it took up so much energy and personal commitment. The jury of the Booker Prize called The Narrow Road to the Deep North a masterpiece. Richard Flanagan will discuss how much of this masterpiece is a private story, and how much of it hides a story that Australia would rather not remember with Michał Nogaś.
Armed conflicts are an enormous challenge of our times. War is a frequent reminder of how disastrous the consequences of escalating tensions can be and the enormous impact they have on the lives of innocent people. What does it look like from up close? Whom does it touch and to what extent? Samar Yazbek, Syrian journalist and author of The Crossing: My Journey to the Shattered Heart of Syria writes about what we probably do not know about her country. She writes about the life of the revolutionaries and the ordinary people, persecuted and killed – first by the regime and then by the religious extremists and ISIS.
Vasyl Slapchuk will also talk about war as a personal experience. The Ukrainian poet, novelist, literary critic and a veteran of the war in Afghanistan has taken on the experience of military conflict in his work for years. Two of his books have been published in Poland: Woman Made of Snow and Book of Forgetting, which is a kind of closure of the Afghan themes.
The next meeting of the day shows conflicts unknown to the media, the stories of violence and exclusion that often do not reach the public. The role of the reporter is to uncover them, even if it requires traveling thousands of kilometres. Artur Domosławski crosses Columbia, Brazil, Mexico, Palestine, Egypt, South Sudan, Kenya and Myanmar, and from all these places, he brings stories that are frighteningly similar, showing the dark side of human nature in various corners of the world, showing that humans are sometimes inclined to the vilest of things. Domosławski’s book shows how easily violence and power invade human life. The author takes the side of the excluded, people who are completely defenceless against the power structures.
Social disparities, poverty, danger – all of these things affect the feeling of happiness. What is this feeling like in Poland, where the situation is relatively stable? Talking about whether Poland is happy will be Jadwiga Staniszkis, Tadeusz Sławek and Szymon Wróbel. The meeting will be conducted by Piotr Śliwiński.
Late in the evening, at the end of the day full of tensions, awaiting the Conrad audience is “Rumble” – a meeting with Szczepan Twardoch, dedicated to his latest novel, Król [King], hosted by Szymon Kloska. What it will bring – we cannot say for sure, and the organisers recommend being ready for intense experiences, especially literary ones.
It is also worth planning a visit to the Pod Baranami Cinema on Friday night. As part of the film programming, there will be a screening of Stephen Daldry’s 2002 The Hours, with an introduction by Michael Cunningham. The author of the novel on which the film is based will definitely help the audience look at the work differently than they have before.
More at www.conradfestival.com
The Conrad Festival is not just about literature – it is also a time of intensive participation in culture. Accompanying events will allow a look at the invited artists and festival topics from a different perspective, they will add variety, and serve as entertainment and education.. The programme will include film screenings, exhibitions and programming directed primarily towards children.
For film lovers, the Festival organisers have chosen a variety of possibilities. On Monday, the film Errant Maps will be presented, telling the story of the journey of the most famous knight errant in Europe’s history – Don Quixote – whose adventures were recorded by Cervantes. The screening will be accompanied by a meeting with Magdalena Barbaruk and Wojciech Charchalis, hosted by Grzegorz Olszański. On Tuesday, Festival participants will have an opportunity to see Under the Skin – a film based on a novel by Michel Faber, who will also meet with readers on that day. On Wednesday, the cult 1990 Polish film Farewell to Autumn will be screened, starring Jan Peszek as Count Jędruś Łohoyski, and on Thursday, another Polish production, Ubu King, directed by Piotr Szulkin with Jan Peszek as Ubu. On Friday, we will see The Hours, directed by Stephen Daldry – an adaptation of the novel by Michael Cunningham, who will provide an introduction before the screening. On Saturday, the film Son of Saul, starring Géza Göhrig, who will also introduce the film. It looks like it will be an intense time for film lovers and everyone who would like to get to know the festival guests and their work.
Many festival events will be held in exhibition spaces. Participants of the Festival will have an opportunity to visit the Museum of the History of Photography, the Art Bunker Contemporary Art Gallery, the Gallery of the Faculty of Art of the Pedagogical University and the club-café Lokator. At the International Cultural Centre, there will be a talk about Professor Rudolf Weidl, a famous biologist, who conducted his studies in Krakow after World War II, and at the National Museum, a meeting with Krisztina Tóth, one of the best contemporary Hungarian writers will be hosted by Joanna Bator.
During the Festival, there will be plenty of attractions for children. Meetings designed for the youngest participants will focus on good and interesting books, published with great care. They will go beyond books, however, inspiring experimentation and individual discoveries. A rich workshop offer awaits the children – from typographic activities, through landscape architecture workshops, to classes on drawing emotions.
Participants will create a model of a housing estate and a green city, during art workshops with Ola and Daniel Mizeliński, they will set out on an incredible journey deep into the Earth and design diving suits. Guido Van Genechten will show children how to express a whole range of emotions using lines and colours. During the optical illusion workshops at the Museum of the History of Photography, they will find out about the construction of the eye, and during meetings with Adam Wajrak and Tomasz Samojlik, they will learn more about the Białowieża Forest. There will also be a premiere of a play for children, The Devil Never Sleeps, inspired by the book The Devil and Company by Agnieszka Taborska. Children’s events require prior registration through the website of the Children’s Literature Festival – a partner of the Conrad Festival (www.fldd.pl). Reservations can be made starting today at 12:00 PM.
CHECK THE PROGRAMME
There will be plenty of variety during this year’s Festival – everyone will surely find something to enjoy. The organisers of the event – the City of Krakow, the Krakow Festival Office and the Tygodnik Powszechny Foundation – encourage you to familiarise yourselves with the programme and choose your own path through the Conrad Festival.
A landscape is more than a place. Sometimes the memory of a place, the emotions and feelings it evokes can be more important than the place itself. All of it brings us to the discussion of the internal landscape, woven from memories and imaginations. There are landscapes which are hard to remove from memory, there are some that evoke the feeling of safety and closeness. Thursday will be devoted to landscapes, and the audience will see the meetings with Géza Röhrig, Szczepan Twardoch, Sofia Andrukhovych and Conrad Award nominees.
“I can say that I found my identity in Auschwitz. This place has plotted a path in my life, a path which I constantly follow”, said Géza Röhrig, who played the leading role in The Son of Saul. Röhrig is also a poet and the former frontman of the underground band Huckleberry. In the Academy Award-winning Son of Saul, he played the role of a Sonderkommando member. Before that, he had been interested in concentration camps for a long time, also because of personal reasons, since his grandfather’s entire family perished in Auschwitz. He visited Oświęcim for the first time as a teenager. During Conrad Festival, in a discussion with Grzegorz Jankowicz, we are going to see him primarily as a writer, author of Rabbi’s Plucked Parrot, a collection of made-up Chassidic stories.
The literature written by reporters often refers to the connection between the landscape and human experiences. Wojciech Górecki, a journalist, historian, reporter and expert on subjects related to the Caucasus, author of three books about the peninsula: Planet Caucasus, Toast to the Ancestors and Abkhazia, will tell us the stories of his long journeys. Talking with him will be Anna Żamejć, journalist and correspondent, another expert on Caucasus.
Another meeting, titled “People from the Province”, will be devoted to landscapes which are closer to us, yet still mostly unknown. In a discussion with Katarzyna Trzeciak, Radka Franczak, Andrzej Muszyński and Maciej Płaza, authors of books connected in a special way to the topic of Polish countryside will answer questions about terra incognita and think about the reasons why the Polish province is constantly infantilised and simplified in collective narratives.
The subjects connected with science and biology, seemingly devoid of any literary potential are always a, challenge for literates. Urszula Zajączkowska decided to take up the challenge by writing Atoms, a book nominated for the Wrocław Silesius Poetry Award in 2015 as a debut of the year, shattering the general belief that a scientific approach to the world is incompatible with literary sensitiveness. During a meeting with Stanisław Łubieński – author of reports, essayist and amateur ornithologist – and Urszula Zajączkowska, Michał Sowiński will learn how science complements literature.
Late in the evening, the audience will be in for Rumble – a meeting with Szczepan Twardoch, whose latest novel – The King – will present the complex, multifaceted and unknown landscape of Warsaw in 1937. The meeting will be hosted by Szymon Kloska.
Known and unknown, close and strange. The landscapes build our imagination and become a matter transformed by literature, becoming a point of reference for human consciousness, very often being its artistic reflection. Join the City of Krakow, Krakow Festival Office and Tygodnik Powszechny Foundation for the festival meetings, exploring this aspect of literature.
More at www.conradfestival.pl
Intensity is an attitude towards the world and many of its aspects, including literature, politics and religion. It has multiple dimensions, such as individual and collective one, and it can be understood as a private experience, as well as one of the aspects of the creative process. The reception of art can also be intense, as may be our participation in a discussion about literature. All of these meanings will be reflected in the programme of the Conrad Festival, which we are announcing today. The festival will take place in Krakow from the 24th to the 30th of October. Soon our readers will be able to participate in fascinating meetings with writers, discussions, reading lessons, film screenings, exhibitions and many other events.
The centre of this year’s Conrad Festival will be located in a new venue – all lovers of literature are invited to the meetings, held at the Czeczotka House at the corner of Wiślna and Św. Anny streets.
The main theme of the festival is, however, not all! The subsequent days of the Festival will have their own sub-themes: languages, beliefs and disbeliefs, emotions, landscapes, tensions, senses and maps. All of them show us the variety of ways in which we can understand the idea of intensity.
Languages, the theme of the first day, brings our attention to the ability to express ourselves and the world. It is the uncertainty of the finality of our language and the accompanying image of the world which encourages us to listen what others have to say and confront our imaginations with them. On the first day of the festival, the members of the legendary literary group OuLiPo: Marcel Bénabeu, Frédéric Forte and Ian Monk will discuss their attitudes towards language. Monday will end to the sound of a concert featuring Andrzej Stasiuk and Mikołaj Trzaska.
The second day of the festival will be devoted to Beliefs-disbeliefs, analysed primarily in their social context. Belief as a factor conducive to creating an imaginary community, may strongly influence an individual and entire societies alike. Michel Faber, a Dutch-Australian-Scottish writer and author of Strange New Things,Ida Linde author of If I Forget You, I Will Become Someone Else and En kärleksförklaring, as well as the outstanding Polish culture scholars Andrzej Leder and Grzegorz Niziołek will join us on the second day.
The third day will be devoted to Emotions. The Peszek family, Jan, Maria and Błażej, will tell us, how to draw upon them and create art. We will also have an opportunity to meet Colm Tóibín, one of the most outstanding contemporary Irish writers, included on the list of 300 most important British intellectuals, published in 2011 by The Observer. The author will tell us about the difficult emotions, which permeate to his literature and shape it.
The landscape is not only a specific place, but also our imagination – including political and ideological one, a memory and the feelings connected with it. The fourth day of the Festival will be devoted to Landscapes. Our special guest, Géza Röhrig, who played the lead role in the Academy Award-winning Son of Saul, will tell us about the place which shaped his identity.
Intensity without Tensions would simply be impossible, which is why they will become the theme of the fifth Festival day. In every lively discussion, one has to take into consideration that they will appear sooner or later. On Friday, we will take a closer look at the lines of conflict, borders and the hotspots of our current reality. Among the most important guests of the day we are going to see Samar Yazbek, a Syrian writer and journalist, author of a moving documentary about the war in Syria titled The Crossing: My Journey to the Shattered Heart of Syria.
The Saturday with Conrad Festival will be especially exciting! Eleanor Catton, Michael Cunningham and Richard Flanagan will join the events of the day devoted to Senses. Flanagan, who received the Booker Prize in 2014 for The Narrow Road to the Deep North, Catton, Booker Prize laureate from 2013 for The Luminaries and Michael Cunningham, a best-selling American writer, author of the Pulitzer Prize-winning The Hours will discuss their experiences with sensuality and what aspects of it can be found in prose. In the evening, Kino Pod Baranami will present the Son of Saul, directed by László Nemes. The screening is a part of the film programming at the festival.
Maps will be the theme of Sunday, the day of awards and prizes. We are going to witness the Polish edition of the Goncourt Literary Prize titled “The Goncourt List: the Polish Selection”, under honorary patronage of the Goncourt Academy. The jury is made up of students of Romance studies, representing ten Polish universities. The winner of last year’s edition was Alain Mabanckou, who will participate in the Sunday meeting. However, the emotions will be the strongest in the evening, when the winners of the Conrad Award – the first Polish award for literary debut – will be announced. The poll, where people can vote on this year’s debuts is already available. Geza Röhrig will take part in the award ceremony. You can cast your vote here.
This year’s programme of the Festival asks you to take a look on the issue of intensity from multiple perspectives, not only in the framework of literature, but also film, music, art and philosophy. However, first at foremost, it is an opportunity for personal search for intensity. We – the City of Krakow, Krakow Festival Office and the Tygodnik Powszechny Foundation – the organisers of the Conrad Festival, encourage you to learn more about the events and participate in this search during the last week of October in Krakow!
CHECK OUT THE PROGRAMME