Each August, Edinburgh turns into the world’s major cultural hub – taking on the role it has been continually pursuing since the initial lauch of the festival in 1947. The 66th edition of the Edinburgh International Festival features artists from India, Brazil, Japan, Ireland, Chile, Romania, North America, Germany, Poland, Russia, France, and across the UK. The EIF audience is also international – the events of last year’s festival were visited by spectators from 74 different countries.
In 1947, the Edinburgh International Festival was borne out of a post-war urgency for the building of new and free European community. Its founders were striving to "provide a platform for the flowering of the human spirit." Sketching out this political context and underlining the public character of his decisions as an artistic director of the EIF, Jonathan Mills honoured the strong Polish presence while addressing the historic role played out by Poland and the symbolic place it continues to occupy in contemporary thiniking about European identity.
Numerous festivals run alongside the mainstream EIF, and the Scottish series of events also highlight contemporary literary greats from Poland, which participate in the Edinburgh International Book Festival and the Edinburgh Book Fringe.
The first Pole to present his work in Scotland will be the young poet Tadeusz Dąbrowski. The meeting with Dąbrowski on the 14th of August, 2012, takes on the form of a discussion on poetry and literary criticism, and the writer is to also address the his collection of verses entitled Black Square, recently translated into English by Antonia Lloyd-Johnsonn and released by Zephyr Press in 2011. Black Square was nominated for Poland's prestigious Nike Literary Prize in 2010 and was endorsed by such iconic poets as Adam Zagajewski and Tomasz Różycki, as well as Boston Review editor Timothy Donnelly. In the introduction Rożycki writes that this is poetry
that smelts its inheritance into something new, modern, and original, something dynamic, paradoxical, constantly in motion, a poetry that is engaged with today’s world in so many of its manifestations, leaping from theme to theme - art, travel, sex, love (presented in all its succulence, no doubt, and with complete candor, as if this most fragile of human affairs was the only constant in life), computers, camera lenses, Europe, America, quotations from philosophers, and rock lyrics - in its ambitious gambit to comprehend a world that remains elusive and undescribed.
On the 26th of August, Aleksandra and Daniel Mizieliński, the authors of an acclaimed children’s book on architecture H.O.U.S.E. invite design and book lovers to a workshop. The beautiful book is an exploration of many different homes across the world: homes in trees, underground, on steps, in the middle of nowhere and in cities. Children aged 8 to 12 are invited to find out where and how people live, the imaginative way architects can use space and then, together, build your own inventive and inspiring building. Perfect for all future designers and architects!
That same day another workshop is proposed to the young Edinburgh visitors. Author and translator Antonia Lloyd-Johnson conducts a children’s workshop, inviting them to a lesson in What Not To Do with a variety of everyday objects. Translated by Antonia from the original Polish, the How Not To manuals are extremely funny, with brilliant pictures. The workshops are based on the How Not To manuals, written by Wojciech Widłak and illustrated by Paweł Pawlak
The translator Lloyd-Johnson also accompanies the acclaimed Polish writer Paweł Huelle during a discussion on the 27th of August. Huelle, who is on the programme of the Edinburgh International Book Festival is to discuss the Cold Sea Stories, which was published by the Comma Press in 2011. In the Cold Sea Stories series, the author incorporates the history and mythology of the Baltic Coast with contemporary political events. Huelle weaves a delightful imaginative landscape in which monumental historical upheavals and the personal crisis of his characters carry equal weight. The stories are unified by a common theme - each features a book, from works of major religious significance, such as the Bible, the Torah, or the I-Ching, to the catalogue issued by a toy shop.
Event details:
- Tadeusz Dąbrowski on poetry and literary criticism
Edinburgh Book Fringe
Tuesday 14 August, 6.30pm
Word Power Books
43-45 West Nicolson Street
Edinburgh EH8 9DB
no admission charge
- HOUSE with Aleksandra & Daniel Mizieliński
Edinburgh International Book Festival
Sunday 26 August, 11:30am-12:30pm
RBS Imagination Lab
£4.50
Ages 8-12
- Stories Inside Stories with Paweł Huelle
Edinburgh International Book Festival
Monday 27 August, 8:30-9:30pm
RBS Corner Theatre
£7.00, £5.00
Editor: SRS
Source: press release, rynek-ksiazki.pl, polishculture.org.uk