Lidia Ostałowska, photo: Łukasz Wójcik
The selection of authors and texts presented in the Nagyvilág acquainted Hungarian readers with a historic range of reportage from Poland. The array began with texts by Hanna Krall and Małgorzata Szejnert, and went on to make known the works of Mariusz Szczygieł, Wojciech Tochman, Włodzimierz Nowak, Lidia Ostałowska and Jacek Hugo-Bader – journalists who began writing in the era of Poland’s post-communist transformations of 1989. The review also published texts by the youngest contemporary Polish reporters - Angelika Kuźniak and Witold Szabłowski. This cross-generational selection sketched out a historic overview of various themes pertinent to Poland’s society and culture as perceived by its journalists. The publication became an apt occasion for further promotion of Polish writing in Hungary, and a whole series of events and meetings with authors is scheduled to take place in Budpest.
Born in 1966, Mariusz Szczygieł is a journalist and writer best-known for his intuitive reportages on Czech nation and its optimistic approach to life, death and the (non)existence of God. He began as a reporter for the Na przełaj weekly in 1986, and took up work with the major journal of a freshly democratic Poland, Gazeta Wyborcza in 1990. He has hosted a talk show for Polsat television, taught journalism, conducted workshops in writing, and since 2002, he has resumed work for Wyborcza, presently in the role of Deputy Editor of the Duży Format (Large Format) supplement. Szczygieł has expressed his belief that only one percent of journalists can be reporters, the process of reporting being an arduous task that only the most hardened ones can manage:
It is hard to write beautifully, to avoid over-describing or invention, using strictly the literary forms. You must have the ability to memorise details. The ability to realise their importance, and at times the ability to make such associations from a distance, so that the report is endowed with an artistic, timeless character.
He is a student of acclaimed author and journalist Hanna Krall, who has often maintained that writing involves removing everything which is unnecessary, and giving the necessary elements a proper rhythm.
Lidia Ostałowska was a reporter for the Przyjaciółka and Itd magazines in a communist Poland, and a journalist for Gazeta Wyborcza during the period of Martial Law in the early 1980s. She specialises in writing on ethnical minorities scattered across Central and Eastern Europe, and is the author of studies on women, adolescents from various subcultures, and those excluded from society. She published her firt book Cygan to Cygan (A Gypsy is a Gypsy) in 2000, and in 2011 she released a reportage-book entitled Farby wodne (Watercolours).
Włodzimierz Nowak (born 1958) is a journalist for Gazeta Wyborcza. His Obwód głowy (Head Perimeter), a selection of Polish-German reportages which he published in 2007 was listed in the finals of the Nike Literary Award in 2008. Nowak is a laurate of the Polish Journalists Association Award for his series of coverage from Belarus and a laureate of the 2004 Grand Press award for his Mój warszawski szał (My Warsaw Folly). In 2009 he published a book entitled Serce narodu koło przystanku (The Nation’s Heart by a Bus Stop)
Coorganised by the Polish Institute in Budapest, the meeting with Szczygieł, Ostałowska and Nowak on the 27th of March begins at Budapest’s Mozsár cafe at 5 pm. The talk with Polish journalists is moderated by Balázs Lévai. Lévai is a television producer, director, journalist and cultural manager. He makes documentary films, cultural programmes, writes, conceptualises events, presents shows, debates and conferences. Lévai’s areas of interest include literature, music, sports and education combined in cultural programmes and documentaries. He has received many honors and awards for his work, including the Knight Cross of the Hungarian Republic Order awarded by the Hungarian Government. was a guest of the European Culture Congress which took place in Wrocław in 2011.
Meeting details:
5 pm - Seeing an Ocean in a Drop of Water / W kropli wody zobaczyć morze. Mariusz Szczygieł speaks about the Polish school of reportage
6 pm - To Be a Reporter is to Understand / Być reporterem to rozumieć. A talk with Polish reporters Lidia Ostałowska, Włodzimierz Nowak and Mariusz Szczygieł, moderated by Balázs Lévai.
Source: polinst.hu/pl, czarne.com.pl, culture.pl