»Beyond Drama and Towards Prose. A Discussion with Marta Sokołowska, Ishbel Szatrawska and Szczepan Twardoch«
Polish
Host: Agata Dąbek
Why have so few Polish dramas been published in book form in recent years? Is it the fault of playwrights, who do not want their works to appear in this form? Or perhaps it is the publishers themselves, who are responsible for this state of affairs – fearful that dramas will not arouse the interest of readers, they refuse to publish them? What, by the way, is the current state of contemporary drama in Poland? Who creates this genre? Which dramas are most willingly staged by Polish theatres? And one more thing: what are the reasons for the phenomenon – observed in recent years, and yet previously unprecedented on such a scale – of playwrights going beyond drama towards prose, mainly novels and short stories?
»Ukraine, or the West. Meeting with Mykola Riabchuk«
Polish
Host: Grzegorz Jankowicz
The war in Ukraine, which was instigated by Russia eight years ago, is presented in different ways in the West. Some Western countries have difficulty in admitting that Russia is the aggressor, that its motivations are completely unjustified, and that the victim is Ukraine, which, as a democratic state, had and still has the right to take decisions on its future in an independent way. One of the most important such issues concerns Ukraine’s relations with the West. Ukraine is waiting to join the European Union; however, its belonging to the West is a fact, not a wish. Culturally and politically, it has for years been part of the Western world, and the West should understand that the war started by Russia also broke out as the result of the current global crisis of democracy.
»With a Story into the Darkness. Meeting with Mariana Enriquez«
Spanish
Host: Nina Pluta
In Mariana Enriquez’s work, the real turns smoothly into the magical. Here, literature about various danger protects against danger. In one scene from the novel Our Share of Night, Gaspar, a boy with psychic abilities, looks at famous paintings and invents stories to go with them. In this way, the narrator informs us, he keeps his father alive. They escape from the Brotherhood, a secret organisation that performs ghostly rituals. Against the background of these fantastic events, a great story unfolds: under the rule of a military junta, bloody terror reigns in Argentina. We will talk with Mariana Enriquez about how fantastic stories help us neutralise the fear that arises when confronted with mortal danger.
