26 June 2025 Motto and first guests of the Conrad Festival 2025
Radical Hope
Motto and first guests of the Conrad Festival
Between 20 and 26 October, we will seek radical hope at the 17th International Joseph Conrad Literature Festival in Kraków.Guests include such authors as Kamel Daoud, Vincenzo Latronico and Emily St. John Mandel.The event also hosts the cultural analyst and strategist Sem Devillart.
The leading motto of this year’s Conrad Festival is Radical Hope.The organisers – City of Kraków, Kraków Festival Office and the Tygodnik Powszechny Foundation – sought inspiration in the title of Jonathan Leare’s acclaimed book.The American philosopher tells the story of Plenty Coups (1848–1932), principal chief of the Crow Tribe from Montana, who strove to protect his people while helping them adapt to a whole new way of life.“The history of the Crow People inspired Leare to develop the concept of radical hope,” explains Olga Drenda, Creative Director of the Conrad Festival. She adds,“It is an attitude which makes it possible to survive even the greatest challenges.It is radical because it forces us to think of a positive future – one which we may not be able to notice or understand at the time.Such hope means taking a risk and a step into the unknown; it is the sister of courage.”
Radical hope
In his book, Leare notes that for many years the lives of the Crow People revolved around horses, hunting bison, fighting the Sioux and the Cheyenne, and singing heroic songs.The expansion of European colonisers changed everything, and the tribe saw their world fall apart.This led them to a compromise by abandoning their nomadic lifestyle.Plenty Coups himself took up agriculture and encouraged his people to do the same.Rather than breaking with continuity, this evolution has been interpreted as a return to lives as led by the Crow Tribe before they became nomadic.In the end, the tribe did more than survive: it managed to build a new identity for itself.
“The end of the world doesn’t have to be a catastrophic crash – it can mean a collapse of an existing reality and a shift to a state where we must continue to exist.Great and small apocalypses happen all the time:cultures, civilisations and epochs come to an end, while individuals experience their own private endings and have to face up to their finiteness,” explains Drenda.“A postapocalyptic reality isn’t something which may happen some time in the future:many people inhabit it already, just like the Crow Tribe did once.And that doesn’t just apply to communities which survive wars or natural disasters.After all, people experience personal ends of the world every day, perhaps by receiving a nasty diagnosis or experiencing relationship breakdowns and job losses.The first shock is followed by a continuing: returning to daily life after emerging from a tunnel in a different place than before.We have to find ourselves anew, draw our own maps and develop new strategies.As part of the Conrad Festival, Kraków hosts authors whose works may help us with this process,” she finishes.
First guests
Kraków welcomes Vincenzo Latronico – author and translator based in Milan.His novel Perfection has been translated into 30 languages and itwas shortlisted for the International Booker Prize.“Latronico tells the story of a couple living seemingly perfect lives: conscious, stylish and responsible.Yet this image conceals sadness and loneliness.While hope doesn’t disappear in a finessed world, it becomes increasingly elusive.During the meeting we will talk about loneliness in the era of optimisation, about the need for community, and about how literature reveals cracks under a perfect surface,” says Michał Sowiński, Literary Editor of the Conrad Festival.The meeting with Latronico will be hosted by the cultural journalist Aleksander Hudzik.
Another guest will be Emily St. John Mandel, one of the most fascinating speculative fiction authors writing today.The New York-based Canadian author has been awarded numerous prestigious prizes and her works are widely read all over the globe.Her novel Station Eleven has been adapted into a popular miniseries.The common element of her writings is borderline situations, marking the end of a certain era.Still, the protagonists endure and show often surprising determination.The discussion is hosted by Olga Drenda.
Kamel Daoud makes a welcome return to the Conrad Festival after a decade away.The French-based Algerian author and journalist has been hotly discussed since the publication of his debut The Meursault Investigation.His latest novel, Houris, has been awarded the Prix Goncourt, the most prestigious prize in French literature; however, for political reasons the publication is banned in Algeria.The protagonist is a woman scarred by the violence of the country’s civil war between 1992 and 2002.“Aube lost her voice after being mutilated; through her internal monologue she tries to keep record of her struggle for freedom and memory.It is a story of when keeping silent doesn’t not mean agreement,” Sowiński explains.The meeting with Daoud will be hosted by the sociologist and publicist Ludwika Włodek.
Another guest of this year’s festival is Sem Devillart – trend analyst, strategist and futurist focused on visual and online culture.She grew up on three continents between seven languages, andshe has studied semiotics, design and comparative religion in Tuebingen and Milan.She has spent the last 20 years developing methods of converting cultural signals and patterns into valuable information, products and business models worthy of challenges of the future.At the Conrad Festival, she will deliver a lecture on important phenomena we can expect in the near future and explain how we can best prepare for them.
Celebration of literature
“In the age of the polycrisis, sooner or later we will all seek out stories which will ignite in us radical hope.I’ll be fascinated to see how this year’s festival guests introduce us to a world of people who want to keep on keeping on, continue being, see possible futures.This year’s programme is truly diverse, exploring our various contemporary struggles and needs,” says Carolina Pietyra, director of KBF and Executive Director of the Conrad Festival.
Discussions with authors are just one element of this autumn’s celebration of literature.The Conrad Festival also includes industry meetings as part of the “Book Congress” and “Reading Lessons” – a cycle of workshops led by literature experts.The stream “Word2Picture” is making a return after a few years, bringing together the publishing and audiovisual industries and presenting adaptations of literary works into films, games and animations.There will also be activities for kids and families and a film section.The Conrad Prize will be awarded for best prose debut for the 11th time.The full programme of the Conrad Festival will be published in September.
Follow the Conrad Festival:
You can see the archival discussion with Jonathan Leare and Grzegorz Jankowicz, held as part of the Nature of the Future section of the Conrad Festival, on YouTube.
Conrad Festival Organisers:City of Kraków, KBF – operator of the Kraków UNESCO City of Literature Programme, Tygodnik Powszechny Foundation
Co-financed by the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage from the Cultural Promotion Fund.
Strategic partners:Tygodnik Powszechny, Allegro
Official carrier:LOT Polish Airlines
