Polish poet Adam Zagajewski spoke on the issues of nationalist identity within the European domain at the Brussels’ Bozar arts centre at a discussion moderated by Johan de Boose, a Flemmish writer and journalist
Zagajewski, renowned for his own poetry works and excellent translations of poems by Polish poets like Czesław Miłosz, presented his authored poems and engaged in debate with the audience on his main themes surrounding questions of identity. A slideshow by Agnes Moyon presenting Zagajewski’s life in pictures and inspirations accompanied the meeting.
The meeting on the 14th of December developed further Zagajewski’s thesis from his 2004 essay "A European Citizen" in which the Pole wrote:
Nobody, as far as I know, is willing to die for Europe. And yet until recently it was not unusual for certain Europeans to be prepared to give their lives for France, for Germany or for Poland. Has Europe become a fiction?
Adam Zagajewski was born on the 21st of June in 1945 in Lviv and he spent his childhood in Silesia, southern Poland, and studied in Kraków at the Jagiellonian University. Zagajewski comes from the Kraków-based literary group "Teraz" / "Now" and, in 1975 after signing the "Letter of 59", the communist regime banned his works. In the 1970s, his work was associated with the independent, underground literary movement and, in 1982, Zagajewski left Poland to Paris. In 2002, the writer returned to Poland and, till now, resides in Kraków. Today, Zagajewski is a member of the Zeszysty Literackie journal editorial staff, a laureate of the Vilenica Prize (1996) and Adenauer Prize (2002) and is a member of the Polish writers association.
Renoned American essayist and literary icon Susan Sontag wrote of Zagajewski:
Zagajewski is not an aesthete. Higher criteria apply to poetry: woe to a writer who puts beauty before the truth.
Johan de Boose is a specialist on Poland and holds a PhD in Slavonic studies. The Flemish writer and journalist is especially known and recognized for his non-fiction books about Russia and Poland.
Date: 14 of December 2011, 8:30 pm
Venue: Salle Terarken, BOZAR Palais des Beaux-Arts de Bruxelles, 23 Rue Ravenstein Brussels
Organised by: BOZAR Literature, Polish Institute in Brussels