Host: Jerzy Franczak

Mohamed Mbougar Sarr’s Prix Goncourt-winning novel constitutes a kind of a test. The Senegalese writer poses questions about the meaning of writing literature; however, for him this is not a general question, but rather the dilemma of someone who is aware of the injustices that have befallen people living in African countries. How has literature responded to the colonial policies of Europe that resulted in the annihilation of peoples and cultures? Has it managed to depict the exploitation and violence of the past? Has it been capable of inventing new ideas and new ways of life from which the victims could benefit? Has it done justice to the latter? Diégane Latyr Faye, a young writer from Senegal, the protagonist of Sarr’s novel, tries to solve the mystery of the disappearance of T.C. Elimane, the author of the legendary novel »The Labyrinth of the Inhuman«, published in 1938. The very act of writing appears to be at stake in his quest, which is driven by literary passion. After all that has happened, is it still possible to spin a yarn? Does anyone still need such stories? In the face of a tragic past, does literature still have something to say to us?

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.

Estonian
Host: Anna Michalczuk-Podlecki

In Estonian folklore, the devil was known by various nicknames, such as Old Spitfire, Old Crosspatch and even Old Bachelor. It is clearly seen that what all his emanations had in common was advanced age. Kratts were creatures that people made from non-essential objects in order to breathe into them souls ransomed from the devil and make them domestic helpers. A Trupibut, on the other hand, was a ghost – powerful and terrible; so terrible that anyone who saw it dropped dead. This peculiar trinity appears – along with other protagonists – in Andrus Kivirähk’s novel Rehepapp ekh November. We will talk to the author about the importance of folklore for contemporary literature, the influence of fairy tales and fables on our collective imagination, as well as about the difference between the real and the imaginary, if there is any.

»An Exit from the Dream House. Meeting with Carmen Maria Machado«

English
Host: Aldona Kobus

According to Carmen Maria Machado, we lack a suitable literary genre with which we can tell the story of violence in a relationship between two women. In a world where homophobic and transphobic attacks occur constantly, it is extremely difficult to address such a topic. In addition to social obstacles, there are also literary problems. Machado argues that language is an element that produces two kinds of effect: creative and destructive. How, then, to speak about this kind of violence? How to deal with social obstacles? How to make literature capacious and at the same time precise enough to fully express a painful experience, while simultaneously pointing out its causes and consequences?

Ukrainian
Host: Katarzyna Kotyńska

In her novel Zabuttia, Tanya Malyarchuk depicts the story of people dedicated to strengthening Ukrainian national identity. Vyacheslav Lypynsky, a politician of Polish origin, has chosen Ukrainianness as a form of life; however, not the life of the individual, but rather that of a community. He wants to share with others what for him is the foundation of a social existence worth arguing and fighting for. The novel prompts questions which, in the context of the current war in Ukraine, are of fundamental importance: about the bonds that unite individuals into a national community, about the ability of the latter to defend its independence, about the cultural emanations of identity, about the possibility of cooperation with other communities, about internal and external forms of communication and, finally, about collective memory.

»When Will the 20th Century End? Meeting with Artur Domosławski«

Polish
Host: Małgorzata Szczurek

The 20th century has been described as the shortest century in history – beginning in 1918 and thus at the end of the First World War and concluding with the fall of communism in 1989. Yet the conflicts we see every day appear as a continuation of 20th century processes, fed by a mixture of regressive psychosocial impulses and dreams of rapid modernisation. In his journalism and biographies (of both Kapuściński and Bauman), Artur Domosławski not only presents the reader with concrete figures but also outlines the historical panorama against which the actions and decisions of his protagonists become comprehensible to us. That is why we decided to ask him the question set in the title, which concerns as much the past and the present as the future, to which we look with concern.