Literature at the OFF Festival
Prose and poetry, classics and the avant-garde, Q&As and concerts: you’ll see it all the OFF Festival’s Literary Café. Once again this year, renowned poet and novelist Wojciech Kuczok has accepted Artur Rojek’s invitation to oversee the artistic side of the OFF Café. Who will be representing literature in the world of music this year, and why? Let’s ask the curator himself.
Krzysztof Varga, who has not only become the nation’s leading columnist now that Jerzy Pilch hasstepped down, but has also sharpened his pen, loosened his fist, and come out with Trociny, a rant against his homeland that would make Bernhard proud.
Radosław Kobierski, Bruno Schulz’s spiritual and physical doppelgänger, one of the leading figures on the Silesian poetry scene and an extraordinarily prolific prose writer.He is also one my closest companions on my voyage through life, one whom I’ve waited until this year to invite, to avoid any accusations of nepotism.
Olga Tokarczuk,the unquestionable star of Polish prose and the most dependable top shelf novelist in the country, one who has consistently been more “on” than “off” the mainstream radar for years, recently provoked my writerly envy with Moment niedźwiedzia, an exceptional book of travel notes and scattered musings on important issues.
BaBu Król is a rediscovered Edward Stachura, one that sings and screams in way that sends shivers down my entire body. Never again will Stachura make me think of wooing high school coeds at a campfire.
Mariusz Sieniewicz is an incessantly and fiercely involved writer with the best left jab on the literary ring; I enjoy his knockouts.
Andrzej Stasiuk has finally agreed to take time off from his summer jaunts around the East of Central Europe (or the center of Eastern Europe) and join us at the festival. Stasiuk is an off-center author par excellance, a vagabond writer, and now a shepherd as well (he owns a ram named Smoleńsk). His words pack a mean punch.
Piotr Sommer’s every verse strikes at the heart of language with such cleverness that I can’t shake the impression of his poetry being simply remarkable.
Wojciech Bąkowski practices an all-embracing form of poetry that brings words together with images and sounds to produce an unparalleled, hypnotic gesamtkunstwerk.
Justyna Bargielska,an author whose output spans both poetic and prose miniatures, has reigned over the avant-garde for years while managing to remain a truthful writer.
Sławomir Shuty, the Che Guevara of Polish prose, never grows tired of experimenting with the format of the author appearance. I tremble to think of what he has in store for the OFF Literary Café.
Janusz Rudnicki is an ingenious writer who has appeared at every OFF Festival and will continue to do so as long as we’re around.
UL/KR is dense, essential poetry mixed in with an intense, thickly-textured layer of sound; a mystical musical event to top off this year’s star-studded OFF Café.
Wojciech Kuczok