As you may remember, the cities of Kraków and Wrocław were invited to participate as guests of honour in the Salon du livre de Paris (…). The programme of presentation will be extremely rich – 34 meetings with leading representatives of Polish literature, poetry, film, reportage and translation will take place at the Polish stand. All meetings will be conducted in Polish and translated into French, and a full package of information about both cities will be available (…).
– explains the Polish Book Institute.
The Parisian book fair – Salon du livre de Paris – is one of Europe’s biggest events of its kind, right after the London and Frankfurt fairs. Each year 200 thousand literature fans explore the offerings of over 1,200 publishers. The organisers have scheduled 500 meetings with authors and debates featuring representatives of 50 countries. The exhibition of Kraków and Wrocław will be the biggest presentation of Polish culture abroad in 15 years.
The director of the Polish Book Institute, Grzegorz Gauden, stresses that book fairs are a particularly important element of promoting Poland and its national culture:
It’s hard to imagine better way to shape our country’s image than by showing the heritage of Polish literature.
Gauden also added that the organisers of the book fair have recently focused on presenting not simply a country’s heritage, but the legacy of particular cities:
Sometimes it’s easier to show attractiveness of a given country if you present a city with history and literary heritage.
The Polish stand will become a place of many unusual meetings and surprising discussions: Wrocław-based Olga Tokarczuk will talk to Erik-Emmanuel Schmitt about the thin borderline between story and history, Mariusz Szczygieł and Wojciech Tochman will try to answer questions about the limits of censorship, Ludwik Flaszen and Georges Banu will discuss Jerzy Grotowski’s theatre, Roman Polański will talk about the relationship between literature and film, Marek Krajewski and Zygmunt Miłoszewski will disclose the secrets of making a Polish detective story and noted illustrator Grzegorz Rosiński will discuss Polish comics.
Nearly 70 personalities of the literary world will be guests of the Kraków-Wrocław stand, mainly poets, writers, reporters, translators and publicists. Besides the aforementioned authors the Polish stand will host Joanna Bator, Marek Bieńczyk, Iwona Chmielewska, Artur Domosławski, Hubert Klimko-Dobrzaniecki, Urszula Kozioł, Ryszard Krynicki, Ewa Lipska, Adam Michnik, Joanna Olech, Tomasz Różycki, Agata Tuszyńska and Krzysztof Varga.
After the Frankfurt Book Fair in 2000, where Poland participated as the guest of honour, the interest in Polish literature in Germany was increased for the whole decade, and our authors suited the tastes of the readers of this part of Europe. I’m sure that this time, thanks to the Kraków and Wrocław exhibition in Paris, it can be similar, and that’s important because France is a significant country when it comes to European culture, and let’s not hide that acquaintance with our literature in that region is scant. I believe that promoting Poland, as well as, for example, Polish economy or science through literature has a much bigger sense and meaning, and can result in much better effects than simply talking about the increase of our GDP.
– Olga Tokarczuk says.
Professor Małgorzata Omilanowska, the Minister of Culture and National Heritage, will take part in the official ceremony opening the book fair. The Polish stand's programme was prepared by the Wrocław ECC 2016 office and the Kraków Festival Office in co-operation with the Polish Book Institute.
Author: Janusz R. Kowalczyk, transl. Agata Dudek. Sources: bookinstitute.pl