26 October 2011 Szwajcarzy na Festiwalu Conrada
Swiss Lib. – Switzerland’s literature on tour – An exhibition organised by Pro Helvetia Warsaw and presented at the Book Fair in Krakow, it will encompass books, authors and topics important to contemporary Swiss literature.
Designed as a mini-town (or mini-village), the multimedia exhibition renders an image of a varied and multilingual Swiss literary scene. Besides books translated into Polish, Swiss.Lib will present recent books that await interest from publishers. The exhibition will also feature film interviews with writers talking about landscapes, identity issues (many contemporary Swiss writers were born and bred in other countries and languages) and – obviously – love. A special audio-chair, designed with the tired fair audience in mind, will facilitate listening to ‘slam poetry’, songs and other pieces in all Swiss languages and dialects.
The exhibition will be accompanied by a literary programme developed in cooperation with the Conrad Festival. The programme features a section dedicated to the most peculiar personality of Swiss literature – Robert Walser. The section will feature an exhibition of Walser’s micrograms and a related discussion with experts on Walser from Switzerland, Poland and the United States. Later, Matteo Terzaghi, a Swiss multilingual writer, will talk to Wojciech Nowicki and Łukasz Trzciński, sharing his reflections on words and images. It is worth mentioning that for Terzaghi, Robert Walser, Hugo Ball and Friedrich Glauser are photographers with their lens focused on words.
The discussion Women Under Pressure will be attended by Fleur Jeaggy, a Swiss writer well familiar to the Polish readership. Her last book published by Noir sur Blanc, Vite Congetturali, features an essay devoted to Robert Walser.
Issues related to poetry translation will be touched on as part of Poetic Transformations. Three Polish poets (Jacek Dehnel, Marcin Kurek, Joanna Wajs and Ryszard Wojnakowski) were asked to meet three Swiss poets (Vanni Bianconi, Francine Clavien and Armin Senser). Earlier, they worked in pairs on translations during three-day workshops at the Villa Decius. During the public meetings, they will present their poems, both in original versions and as translated into Polish, German, French and Italian, and share their reflections on the differences and similarities in the process of creating and translating poetry. The project is curated by Anna Schlossbauer, a co-organiser of the Festival of Literature and Translation in Bellinzona.
At the end, a somewhat performance-based event is scheduled – Aller guten Dinge sind drei, a campaign promoting the Swiss tri-lingual RADAR magazine. Three poets and their poems about dreams, a heart-devouring god and the the devastation of floors. In Polish, German and Ukrainian, in original versions and translations. The meeting, with Kateryna Babkina (Ukraine), Nora Gomringer (Switzerland) and Joanna Lech (Poland), is being organised in collaboration with the Villa Decius Association, and will be hosted by Tomasz Charnas. Each guest will receive a free issue of the RADAR magazine.
More information on: www.prohelvetia.pl
