Foreign Guests - POLAND
 LIDIA AMEJKO
POLAND [*1955]
15. 5. | 12.00 | Chamber Hall
15. 5. | 13.00 | stand S 201
Writer and playwright who lives in Wrocław. Gained renown with the play Farrago (1996), which was later filmed by Polish Television. Lidia Amejko is the author of several collections of short stories, the best known of which, Głośne historie (2003), is about to be published in Czech in the translation.
[ photo Danae Ribibitsch
 ŁUKASZ DĘBSKI
POLAND [*1975]
15. 5. | 14.00 | pavilon „Svět knihy dětem“ (dílna)
The successful author of short stories and a series of guides to the countries of Europe for young readers. Café Szafé, a volume of short stories, was translated into Czech and published in 2009, before this year’s book fair a collection of his poems for children will be published by Barrister & Principal, translated into Czech. Łukasz Dębski will appear in Prague together with his wife Anna Kaszuba- -Debska (b. 1975), artist and illustrator of more than one hundred books for children.
[ photo archiv autora
 AGNIESZKA DROTKIEWICZ
POLAND [*1981]
14. 5. | 19.00 | Café & Bookstore Fra
Drotkiewicz tends to be classified as a feminist author, but “female” would be a more appropriate description. Her debut work Paris London Dachau (2004), the monologic confession on consumer society of the author’s alter ego is interspersed with quotations and allusions to pop culture.
photo Elżbieta Lempp
[ photo Elżbieta Lempp
 SYLWIA CHUTNIK
POLAND [*1979]
14. 5. | 19.00 | Café & Bookstore Fra
The “angry, engagée young woman” of contemporary
Polish literature, Sylwia Chutnik is a social activist,
campaigner for the rights of women and mothers
and a graduate in gender studies. A Czech edition
of her 2008 debut book Kieszonkowy atlas kobiet/
A Pocket Atlas of Women – winner of the prestigious
Paszport Polityki prize – is in preparation.
[ photo Elżbieta Lempp
 KRZYSZTOF KOEHLER
POLAND [*1963]
13. 5. | 16.00 | Literary Hall
15. 5. | 17.00 | Literary café
Poet and literary historian of the “bruLion generation”
(bruLion was an avant-garde magazine in the
late 1980s and 1990s), is a spokesman for the “classicist”
stream of young Polish poetry. As a literary
historian he is a specialist in the Polish Baroque. Since
2006 he has been controller of TVP Kultura,
POLAND’s public-service television channel for culture.
His poems appear in Czech
[ photo Archiv www.eteatr.pl
 ISTVÁN KOVÁCS
MAĎARSKO [*1945]
14. 5. | 17.00 | Literary Hall
Hungarian historian, Polish scholar, translator and
former consul general in POLAND, István Kovács
works at the Institute of History of the Hungarian
Academy of Sciences. He is the author of many publications
on the modern history of POLAND and
Polish-Hungarian relations. At the book fair he will
be introducing his book The Miracle by the Vistula
and the Baltic.
[ photo Orsolya Kovács
[ photo Orsolya Kovács
 MAREK KRAJEWSKI
POLAND [*1966]
15. 5. | 11.00 | Hall "Growing with the Book"
15. 5. | 12.00 | stand S 201
The king of the Polish detective novel and one of
Wrocław’s best-known citizens. To date his books
have been translated into fourteen languages. He
is the creator of Eberhard Mock – a police detective
in the pre-war German city of Breslau (today
Wrocław in POLAND). Of the six novels in this series,
two – Death in Breslau (2008) and The End of the
World in Breslau
[ photo FILIP ITOITO & SOLAREWICZ
 WOJCIECH KUCZOK
POLAND [*1972]
13. 5. | 15.00 | Literary café
13. 5. | 16.00 | stand S 201
Amateur speleologist and increasingly successful
film screenplay writer, Wojciech Kuczok is one of
the “lower prosperity generation” which includes
Michał Witkowski and Dorota Masłowska. His first
novel (or anti-novel) Gnój/Dung is published in the
Czech translation of Barbora Gregorová; it is composed
of fragmentary memories of childhood that
contain trauma, concealed hatred and unwitting
psychological dependency. The book’s publication
is one of the most important literary events in POLAND
in the past decade, and in 2004 it brought its
author POLAND’s prestigious NIKE literature prize. In
the same year a film version of Dung was released
as Pregi/Welts, this won the prize for
[ photo dziennik.pl
 PAWEŁ LISICKI
POLAND [*1966]
13. 5. | 17.00 | Great Hall
Paweł Lisicki is a journalist and philosopher who
since 2006 has been editor-in-chief of Rzeczpospolita,
POLAND’s biggest quality daily. He has written
four collections of theological and philosophical
essays, two stage plays and a political thriller. In
1988 Paweł Lisicki received the Andrzej Kijowski
Award for his essay collection
[ photo achiv www.efakt.cz
 DOROTA MASŁOWSKA
POLAND [*1983]
15. 5. | 16.00 | Author's Hall
15. 5. | 17.00 | stand S 201
Dorota Masłowska is the wunderkind of contemporary
Polish literature, she is a laureate of the prestigious
prizes the Paszport Polityki (for Wojna POLAND-
ruska pod flagą biało-czerwoną) and the Nike
(for Paw królovej). Her two most recent works, the
stage plays Dwoje biednych Rumunów mówiących
po polsku/A Couple of Poor, Polish-speaking Romanians
and Między nami dobrze jest/Things are Good
Between Us, are about to be published in Czech by
FRA and Nakonari publishers in an anthology of
contemporary Polish drama.
[ photo Elżbieta Lempp
 ANDRZEJ PILIPIUK
POLAND [*1974]
16. 5. | 11.00 | Literary café
16. 5. | 12.00 | stand S 201
One of POLAND’s leading authors of fantasy fiction
whose work is marked by its humour, Andrzej Pilipiuk
trained as an archaeologist. He is the creator of
the legendary Jakub Wędrowycz, producer of moonshine
and exorcist – an autodidact who, in remote
little Wojsławice, fights with vampires. For the novella
Cousins (2005) he received the Janusz A. Zajdel
Award (the most prestigious in Polish SF and fantasy
fiction). Laser Books will be introducing at the
fair the fifth book in the Jakub Wędrowycz series in
Czech.
[ photo Wyd. WAB
[ photo Wyd. WAB
 JANUSZ RUDNICKI
POLAND [*1956]
15. 5. | 12.00 | Chamber Hall
15. 5. | 13.00 | stand S 301
He is considered one of the major Polish contemporary
prose writers, acclaimed by the critics as the
master of grotesque and daring literary provocations.
He left POLAND in 1983 for political reasons and
currently shares his time between Hamburg and
Prague. His book Chodźcie, idziemy was shortlisted
for Polish Nike Prize and European Literary Prize in
2008. In Czech he published a book of short stories
Smrt českého psa.
[ photo archiv autora
 ANDRZEJ SAPKOWSKI
POLAND [*1948]
15. 5. | 13.00 | Great Hall
15. 5. | 14.00 | stand S 201
“The uncrowned king of Polish fantasy fiction”, Andrzej
Sapkowski is an Economics graduate. His novels
about Geralt the “Witcher” have achieved
enormous popularity. He is the only writer to have
won the Janusz Zajdel Award – POLAND’s most prestigious
sci-fi and fantasy prize – five times. A Czech
translation of Andrzej Sapkowski’s new book Viper,
which takes us to war-torn Afghanistan, is in preparation;
passages from this work will be given a very
first reading at this year’s Book World.
[ photo Elżbieta Lempp
 WISŁAWA SZYMBORSKA
POLAND [*1923]
14. 5. | 16.00 | Great Hall
Poet of gentle irony and philosophical intensity,
Wisława Szymborska won the Nobel Prize in Literature
in 1996. Last year the latest collections appeared
in Czech as Okamžik. Dvojtečka. Tady. Wisława
Szymborska addresses themes which are at first
sight ordinary and commonplace, but it is in the
poet’s ability to turn a new, fresh eye on her immediate
surroundings, interpersonal relations and seemingly
obvious problems.
[ photo Elżbieta Lempp
 EUGENIUSZ TKACZYSZYN-DYCKI
POLAND [*1962]
15. 5. | 17.00 | Literary café
Last year Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki became only
the third poet to win the Nike, POLAND’s most prestigious
literature prize, for his collection Piosenka
o zależnościach i uzależnieniach. Tkaczyszyn-Dycki
draws on the tradition and imagery of the Polish
Baroque. His verse is heavily autobiographical, returning
often to the poet’s “small homeland” in
the Polish-Ukrainian borderlands.
[ photo Elżbieta Lempp
 OLGA TOKARCZUK
POLAND [*1962]
14. 5. | 14.00 | stand S 201
14. 5. | 15.00 | Chamber Hall
Olga Tokarczuk is perhaps the contemporary Polish
writer of prose whom the Czech Republic knows
best; she is also one of the most important literary
finds of the1990s. Her books enjoy great popularity
at home and abroad, not only for their general accessibility
but also for their philosophical and mythological
reach. Her novel Bieguni [Runners] received
the 2008 main NIKE award, POLAND’s most prestigious
literary prize. Motifs – somewhat surprisingly
in the guise of the horror-cum-detective novel –
are to be found in her latest work Prowadź swój
pług przez kości umarłych [Drive Your Plough over
the Bones of the Dead], passages from which will
be presented in Czech at Book World.
[ photo archiv autora
 BRONISŁAW WILDSTEIN
POLAND [*1952]
13. 5. | 17.00 | Great Hall
14. 5. | 18.00 | Literary café
Bronisław Wildstein is a former dissident and founder,
in 1977, of the Student Committee of Solidarity
– one of the first organizations of opposition in POLAND.
Since 1989 he has been one of POLAND’s
best-known journalists. From 2006 to 2007 he was
director-general of POLAND’s state-owned television
company. He works currently for the daily newspaper
Rzeczpospolita and presents his own television
programme. He is also author of many novels which
address contemporary social and political issues. His
latest work of literature, the novel Dolina Nicości/
Valley of Nothingness (2008) was awarded the
prestigious Jozef Mackiewicz Literary Prize.
[ photo archiv autora
 MICHAŁ WITKOWSKI
POLAND [*1975]
15. 5. | 15.00 | Chamber Hall
15. 5. | 16.00 | stand S 201
Provocative, award-winning prose writer of the
younger generation who rose to fame both by his
highly individual public appearances and his novel
Lubiewo/Lovetown, which was awarded the prestigious
Paszport Polityki and was nominated for the
Nike Prize. Lubiewo has been described as the first
Polish gay novel. A Czech translation of another of
Witkowski’s successful novels, Barbara Radziwiłłówna
z Jaworzna-Szczakowej, an ironic “historical
study” of early Polish capitalism, is currently in
preparation; extracts from the novel will be heard
for the first time at BookWorld.
[ photo Marcin Łobaczewski | 
