photo courtesy of the International Festival Of Authors
Polish writer Grażyna Plebanek presents her picquante novel about love, as part of the literary festival that also features Stephen King, Margaret Atwood and Yanna Martela
IFOA presents the finest international novelists, poets, playwrights, short-story writers and biographers, and provides Canadian writers with an internationally recognized forum in which to present their work. The festival is held in Vancouver each fall, and it runs for 11 days under a theme. In 2013, the organisers have selected two titulary sections for the event. Brave New World is dedicated to the promotion of young and emerging authors, and Found in Translation lays emphasis on the art of literary transcription. Ewa Stachniak, a Polish writer who also takes part in the festival states that although literary works from Poland are not very known in Canada, the key to promoting it is quality translation work.
During one of Stachniak’s meeting, which took place earlier in Toronto, she was surprised to encounter huge numbers of readers, and the auditoriums filled with people fascinated by her works Winter Palace and Catherine the Great. Stachnikak reveals that:
When we tell Polish stories as if they weren’t only ours, and secretely understandable only to us, when we make them a part of the European experience, then we can count on an interest in Polish culture.
The 34th edtition of the International Festival of Authors takes place in Vancouver, spreading across 13 popular cafes. For the past few weeks, these cafes offered their visitors numeours translations of Polish novels, with 77 different titles. Some of the authors whose works are scattered across the cafes include Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, Ryszard Kapuściński, Jerzy Kosiński, Marek Krajewski, Stanisław Lem, Andrzej Sapkowski, Ewa Stachniak, Andrzej Stasiuk and Magdalena Tulli. The cafe intitive, which runs under the title Book Polishing, has been instigated by Polish youth in Canada and it is conducted by the Polish consulate in Vancouver.
Editor: Paulina Schlosser,
Source: ifoa.org, 23.10.2013