Guest of this year's Conrad Festival, Agnieszka Taborska, photo: Culture.pl
Italian essayist and writer Claudio Magris, American author and journalist Anne Applebaum, and Szczepan Twardoch are the newest confirmed guests of the 5th Conrad Festival.
The three authors join previously announced guests including Åsa Larsson, one of the most popular and widely translated Swedish crime fiction authors, Moroccan writer Tahar Ben Jelloun, winner of the Prix Goncourt, Agnieszka Taborska, writer, art historian, author of The Dreaming Life of Lenora de la Cruz, W.J.T. Mitchell, who is among the important figures in contemporary humanities in the U.S., and the Brothers Quay, outstanding animated film makers, directors and scenic designers.
From the newly announced guests, Claudio Magris is a novelist, essayist, translator and professor of German literature at the University of Trieste. He is fascinated by Central Europe as a place where different cultural influences mix. Anne Applebaum is an American writer, journalist and columnist for the Washington Post. Szczepan Twardoch hails from Upper Silesia and is the author of Morphine, this year’s winner of the Passport Award in literature from Polityka magazine.
The festival will be held in Kraków from the 21st to the 27th of October. This year's theme is literature as a medium, as an intermediary between the world and us, a means by which we express our beliefs, desires and feelings.
Gregorz Jankowicz, executive director of the festival, underscores that during the event “with prominent writers from all over the world, we see the books and phenomena that are landmarks of contemporary culture. We also like to remind creators of the dead, to re-assess their thoughts and confront their ideas.”
The 2013 edition of the festival will remember the work of Greek poet Constantine Cavafy, who died 80 years ago. One guest will be Ireneusz Kania, a brilliant translator who has prepared a new translation of the Alexandrian poet’s poems. The festival will also honor the great German painter, graphic artist and writer Max Ernst. An exhibition of his prints, collages and illustrations will be shown in Kraków.
Held since 2009, the Conrad Festival is not dedicated to the works of the famed writer. He is rather a sort of patron of the event, which is a presentation of contemporary literature and a meeting place for writers, readers and translators. The festival is organized by the city of Kraków, the Kraków Festival Office, and the Tygodnik Powszechny Foundation. The project is co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage.
Source: PAP 10.07.2013
Edited: mg
Translated: Alena Aniskiewicz