About five hundred participants and thousands of visitors will take part in the biggest Polish book fair starting this week in Warsaw.
The 54th Warsaw International Book Fair will be a real holiday for readers. The Warsaw’s Palace of Culture and Science will host almost all of Poland’s publishing houses and plenty of representatives from more than thirty other countries.
“The crisis did not influence our fair. It seems that it will be a big celebration with a great deal of drive, a rich offer of accompanying events, crowds of visitors and an impressive number of book premieres,” said spokesperson of the fair Roman Czejarek.
The guest of honour of this year fair will be the Council of Europe. The organization is celebrating its 60th anniversary this year. For that occasion, the Council published a special book which will premier during the Warsaw’s fair.
Bookworms will also have many opportunities to meet their favourite writers. One of the most famous participants will be Claudio Magris, an Italian writer is especially known of his fascination with Central Europe. In his books, such as Danube or Microcosms, he praises multiculturalism of Italia, German, Slavic borderland. The Trieste-based author is regularly listed as a one of the candidates for the Nobel Price in literature.
The fair will also gather Poland’s top shelf writers. Visitors can meet Adam Zagajewski, the poet and essayist, who has published five of his books of poems on English. In the US, he is especially known for a poem Try To Praise The Mutilated Word which became famous as The New Yorker published it few days after 9/11.
Other famous Polish writers who will participate at the fair are Roma Ligocka, Antoni Libera, Marek Edelman, Jacek Dukaj, Jerzy Pilch, and Wladyslaw Bartoszewski,
Another very interesting event to take place during the fair will be an exhibition of Zygmunt Bauman’s photos. The world famous sociologist is to publish them in a “Life in context: Discussions about that which is behind and that which will come,” by Zygmunt Bauman, Roman Kubicki and Anna Zeidler-Janiszewska.
The fair kicks off tonight with a special opening ceremony. The first day, Friday, is targeted specifically at professionals. Saturday and Sunday, the fair opens to the general public. (jg/mmj)