This year's edition of the Istanbul Tanpınar International Literature Festival in Turkey (ITEF), organized by the Kalem Kültür Foundation, will take place between 05-11 May, 2014. With the cooperation of the Polish Book Institute (Instytut Książki), this year’s guest of honour is Poland, represented throughout various presentations, panels and workshops between 05-07 May.
Over the course of the festival Andrzej Bart and Zygmunt Miłoszewski – whose books will be appearing this year in Turkish translations – and Wojciech Kuczok will take part in debates with other writers. The writers and illustrators of children's books, Joanna Olech and Adam Pękalski, will meet with school classes and run workshops.
A special anthology will be prepared for the event, presenting short stories and brief texts by such authors as: Olga Tokarczuk, Andrzej Stasiuk, Janusz Głowacki, Wojciech Kuczok, Michał Witkowski, Jerzy Pilch, Natasza Goerke, Mariusz Szczygieł, Jacek Dukaj, Magdalena Tulli, Paweł Huelle, Stefan Chwin, Józef Hen, Andrzej Sapkowski, Joanna Bator, and Jacek Hugo-Bader.
Detailed Polish Programme at the ITEF:
May 5th, Monday
The opening ceremony of the ITEF will take place between 10:00-11:30 a.m., at Istanbul Erkek High School. The first panel on the Polish programme, Contemporary Polish Literature, and the launch of An Anthology of Contemporary Polish Writing will be held between 7:30-8:30 p.m at the Ataturk Library. Participating authors include Andrzej Bart, Wojciech Kuczok, and Zygmunt Miloszewski. The event is moderated by Cem Erciyes, with simultaneous translation into Turkish.
May 6th, Tuesday
Joanna Olech will meet with students for workshops on children’s books between 11:00-12:00 a.m. and 1:00-2:00 p.m. at the Beyoğlu Firuzağa Primary School. Later on the same day, between 8:30-9:30 p.m. at the Sismanoglio Megaro, there will be another important panel discussion, Flashbacks into History, featuring authors Andrzej Bart, Ayşegül Devecioğlu, Douwee Draaisma, and Inka Parei, and moderated by F. Cihan Akkartal. The panel will focus on how traumatic social events - such as the disappearance of a country, or civil wars - affect individuals, and what narrative strategies are pursued by authors who set their works against social and historical scenarios where such incidents occur during or outside of the story’s timeline.
May 7th Wednesday
At Sismanoglio Megaro, between 6:00-7:00 p.m., the panel Passage Through Hell will be held and attended by Carl-Johan Vallgren, Sezgin Kaymaz, and Wojciech Kuczok, and moderated by F. Cihan Akkartal. Polish author Wojciech Kuczok takes the road through family life, Sezgin Kaymaz pursues the faiths of those who are expelled from Eden, and Carl-Johan Vallgren seeks the path of those who “suffer horrifically.”
The next panel of the day, between 8:30-9:30 p.m again at Sismanoglio Megaro, is The Postmodern Trouble: An Anchor to Reality?, featuring authors Andrzej Bart, Inka Parei, and Murat Menteş, and moderated by Ayşe Ünal Ersönmez. The panel discussion will focus on how an author makes the world his/her own in a postmodern context. Strategic transitions from an existing location to a fictional city and other ways of building a world on the slippery ground of the postmodern novel are confronted in this conversation between Murat Menteş, Turkish author of “unusual novels,” Andrzej Bart, Polish author of the "postmodern adventure" Don Juan Revisited (Don Juan raz jeszcze), and German author Inka Parei, who superimposes her stylistic narrative choices upon the crumbling city that was East Berlin in Shadow Boxing Woman.
For more details on the programme, visit event page: http://www.itef.com.tr/events?locale=en
Current State of Things
Looking at the current state of literary exchange between the two countries, one can see that both historical and contemporary Polish authors are available on the Turkish market. Stanisław Lem is a familiar name, though he was not translated directly from Polish; such classics as Ashes and Diamonds by Jerzy Andrzejewski (Kül ve Elmas, Versus Kitap, 2009), The Captive Mind by Czesław Miłosz (Tutsak Edilmiş Akıl, Elips Kitap, 2006), Medallions by Zofia Nałkowska (Madalyonlar, Evrensel Yayınları, 1998), and Stefan Grabiński's Speed Demon (Hareket Iblisi, Okuyan Us, 2010) have been published, as have such thinkers as Leszek Kołakowski and Zygmunt Bauman; Sławomir Mrożek's plays have also been performed. Over the last few years there have also been single titles by popular authors – Mariusz Czubaj's detective novel 9:37 (Apollon, 2010) and Bikini by Janusz Leon Wiśniewski (Pupa, 2011). Contemporary Polish literature has been represented by names such as Jacek Dehnel, with his novel Lala (Lala, Apollon, 2010). The ITEF hopes to provide a new platform for this literary exchange to grow.
The organizer of the festival is Kalem Kültür, in cooperation with the Polish Book Institute (Instytut Książki), and the project is financed by funding from the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage as an event in the framework of the cultural programme for the 600th anniversary of Polish-Turkish diplomatic relations in the year 2014.
Sources: Organizer’s materials, own materials.
Edited by EM. 15/04/2014