20 October 2009 Quignard, Enquist, Keret – meetings with readers in Krakow
Special guests of the first Joseph Conrad International Literature Festival will be such distinguished writers as Pascal Quignard, Per Olov Enquist, Etgar Keret and Atiq Rahimi. Meetings with each of the authors will be held in Krakow. All readers are welcome to attend!
Pascal Quignard is a French writer and translator, whose works are well-known in Poland. For many years he worked for Gallimard publishers, where eventually he became General Manager. His novel Les Ombres Errantes won the prestigious Prix Goncourt in 2002. In 2008 one of his latest books, La nuit sexuelle (The Sexual Night), was translated into Polish. Pascal Quignard will be the guest of the second day of the Festival (Tuesday, 3rd November). At 10 am a meeting for critics, translators and the media will take place in Café Camelot. However, wider public will also have a chance to meet the author, at 6 pm in the auditorium of Collegium Novum UJ. Both meetings will be chaired by Krzysztof Rutkowski, the translator of Quingard’s works into Polish.
Per Olov Enquist is a writer and playwright well-known to all fans of Scandinavian literature. Many adaptations of his plays were highly successful both in Broadway and in Polish theatres. He has received numerous awards for his works whose virtuoso formal experiments are combined with exceptionally accurate psychological portraits of Swedes. Two best known of his works published in Poland are Livläkarens besök (The visit of the royal physician) and Boken om Blanche och Marie (The Book about Blanche and Marie). Per Olov Enquist will meet his readers on Wednesday, 4th November. At 10 am a meeting for critics, translators and the media will take place in Café Camelot and will be chaired by the literary critic Jan Balbierz. At 8 pm, in the auditorium of Collegium Novum UJ, a meeting for wider public will be chaired by Agneta Pleijel, a Swedish writer and translator.
Etgar Keret is an Israeli writer and renowned director of Polish descent. For a few years he has been highly popular with Polish readers. He is a lecturer at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beer Sheva and Tel Aviv University. He excels at dark humour and short literary form; his witty and biting short stories have frequently piqued Israeli politicians. In 2006, together with his wife Shira Geffen, he directed the film Jellyfish, for which they received the Camera d’Or prize at the 2007 Cannes Film Festival. His latest books to be published in Poland are Ga’aguai Le’Kissinger (Missing Kissinger) and Ha’Keytana Shel Kneller (Kneller’s Happy Campers). Two meetings with Keret will be held on Thursday, 5th November. At 10 am a meeting for critics, translators and the media will take place in Café Camelot and will be chaired by the critic, translator and publisher Grzegorz Jankowicz. At 8 pm in Klub Drukarnia a meeting open to wider public will be chaired by Anita Piotrowska (film critic) and Grzegorz Jankowicz.
Undoubtedly, a major event at the Festival will be also the visit of Atiq Rahimi, an Afhgan-French writer and a war refugee form Afghanistan. In 2004 Rahimi directed a film adaptation of one of his novels, Terre et cendres. This film won the Prix du Regard vers l’Avenir at the Cannes Film Festival in 2004. In 2008 Rahimi was awarded Prix Goncourt for Syngue Sabour, his first novel written in French (earlier he wrote in Persian). Rahimi will meet his readers on Friday 6th November. At 10 am a meeting for critics, translators and the media will take place in Café Camelot and will be chaired by the translator Magdalena Kamińska-Maurugeon. At 6 pm, in Sala Mehofferowska (the Mehoffer Room) of Wydawnictwo Literackie (Literary Press), the writer and translator Max Cegielski will chair a meeting for wider public, during which also the winner of the Polish edition of Prix Goncourt 2009 will be announced.
