Contemporary Polish poet and translator Piotr Sommer and controversial Ukrainian intellectual Mykola Ryabchuk will be featured along with a screening of documentary film, "Life is Bearable, at Times...", by Katarzyna Kolenda-Zaleska about Nobel Prize winning poet Wislawa Szymborska at the 2011 PEN World Voices Festival of International Literature
Szymborska famously avoids public appearances and international travel, but in Kolenda-Zaleska's film we gain some sense, apart from what can be divined from her poems, of her personality, her admiration for great art, the insights of science, her fascination for particularly clever kitsch objects, and her devotion to her close circle of friends and to the late writer, Kornel Filipowicz. We also hear from three of her greatest heroes, who also turn out to be some of her biggest fans: Vaclav Havel, Jane Goodall, and above all Woody Allen, who has clearly read Szymborska's work seriously and responds to it with his characteristic humor.
Mykola Ryabchuk, a frequent contributor and deputy editor of the leading intellectual journal Krytyka, patterned after The New York Review of Books, will discuss the problem of being part of a "majority minority" culture in Ukraine with writers facing similar issues in other parts of the world, and will participate in an international discussion of the independent press. He is known particularly for his nuanced ability to "read" politics like a literary text.
Piotr Sommer will read his poems as part of an all-star panel on music and poetry curated and moderated by Laurie Anderson at the 92nd Street Y, which promises to be the highlight of this year's festival. Sommer has long served as a conduit for international literature in Poland, both as a translator of English, Irish, and American contemporary poetry and as editor of the journal, Literatura na świecie (World Literature). John Ashbery called Sommer "the great poet of everyday loneliness," famous for his ability to deliver deadpan irony in the language and rhythms of ordinary speech.
The seventh annual PEN World Voices Festival, assembled under the aegis of the PEN American Center - the largest branch of the world's oldest literary and human rights organization - presents over two hundred writers, translators, intellectuals, and scholars from around the world in readings, performances, discussions, film screenings, and workshops about today's literary world and the intersections between literature, politics, and the changing world of publishing, in venues throughout New York City.
Programme:
- April 27, 2011, at 4:00 PM - Scandinavia House, 58 Park Ave.
Writing in a Majority/Minority Cultural Context: Local Identity vs. a Broader Nation
Panelists: Nadine Bismuth, Nicolas Dickner, Dominique Fortier, Mykola Ryabchuk, Teresa Solana; moderation: Susan Harris
- April 27, 2011, at 7:00 PM - The Standard Hotel, New York High Line Room, 848 Washington St.
How to Start a Revolution (in the Library): Authors Defect From Corporate Publishing
Panelists: Carmen Boullosy, Ben Greenman, Mykoła Riabczuk , Dale Pecck, Amy Scholder and Monika Zgustova; moderated by: Lisa Dierbeck.
- April 28, 2011, at 8:00 PM - Instituto Cervantes New York,211-215 E. 49th St.
Life is Bearable, at Times... (Chwilami życie bywa znośne…), dir. Katarzyna Kolenda-Zaleska, 73 min; produced by TVN, Poland 2009
- April 29, 2011, at 7:30 PM - 92nd Street Y, Unterberg Poetry Center, 1395 Lexington Ave.
Poetry: the Second Skin
Panelists: Piotr Sommer, John Burnside, Ernesto Cardenal, David-Dephy Gogibedashvili, Hasina Gul, Yusef Komunyakaa, Juan Carlos Mestre, Joachim Sartorius and Pia Tafdrup; moderated by: Laurie Anderson
For more info see:
www.pen.orgSource:
www.polishculture-nyc.org