Dorta Jagić – the winner of the European Poet of Freedom Literary Award in Krakow!

The Urban Culture Institute from Gdańsk and the Krakow Festival Office invites us to the Under the Globe Bookstore (ul. Długa 1), on 13th June, at 7.00 pm, to a meeting with the Croatian poet Dorta Jagić and with her translator, Małgorzata Wierzbicka. The meeting will be moderated by Szymon Kloska. On 21th March 2014, Jagić received the Literary Award of the City of Gdańsk, the European Poet of Freedom, for her volume entitled A Couch in the Market (2011). This award promotes and distinguishes the valuable poetic phenomena referring to the issue of freedom. “Dorta Jagić’s poems are the affirmation of freedom of a woman – of her unrelenting attitude towards the pressures of corporality and emotions and the social or historical determinations” – wrote the jury, presided over by Professor Krzysztof Pomian, while justifying the decision. The organisers of the meeting are: the Urban Culture Institute, the Krakow Festival Office and Krakow the UNESCO City of Literature UNESCO.

Dorta Jagić is a poet, an author of short prose and dramas, a translator, a philosopher and a religious scientist, as well as this year’s winner of the European Poet of Freedom Literary Award for the volume A Couch in the Market (2011), which tells us about a woman in different aspects and at different stages of her life. At present she is working on the dictionary of biblical women. She likes to travel. For her debut volume of poetry (Plahta preko glave, 1999) she received a prestigious Croatian prize for poetry – Goran za mlade pjesnike. In 2007, at the international poetic festival in Romania she was awarded the Balkan Grand Prize for Poetry. She cooperates with students’ amateur experimental theatres.
The International European Poet of Freedom Literature Festival is held every two years by the Urban Culture Institute in Gdańsk. In 2014, the city of Gdańsk, already for the third time, honoured an European author from Europe with the European Poet of Freedom Literary Award. This time it was Dorta Jagić from Croatia together with her translator, Małgorzata Wierzbicka. The laureates of the former editions were: Durs Grünbein (2012, Germany) for the volume Misanthrope on Capri and Uładzimier Arłou (2010, Belarus) for the volume An English Channel Ferry. The jury is composed of Krzysztof Czyżewski, Agnieszka Holland, Paweł Huelle, Andrzej Jagodziński (the secretary), Zbigniew Mikołejko, Stanisław Rosiek, Anda Rottenberg and Professor Krzysztof Pomian (the chairman).
The volumes of poetry by all nominees are published by the city of Gdańsk and by the Urban Culture Institute. The volumes from this year’s edition may be ordered online at www.ikm.gda.pl
More information about the European Poet of Freedom Literary Award can be found on the website and on theFacebook.