Following the idea quoted above, each day the festival will hold topical meetings with researchers and invited guests. Gorlice will once again host prof. Aleksander Madyda, Andrzej Niewiadomski, PhD, and Paweł Panas, PhD, who will talk about Zygmut Haupt’s place in 20th century Polish literature and about the unique literary language of this author. These meetings will, at the same time, constitute a great opportunity to present a new edition of “Basque devil,” which was published this year by the Czarne Publishing House, edited by prof. Aleksander Madyda.

The “Writer’s Archive” and “Reception” meetings look equally promising. The guest of the former will be Barbara Krupa — Curator for Slavic and East European Collections at Stanford University — who has custody over the entire American archive of Zygmunt Haupt’s works. The topic of the latter meeting will be the reception of the writer’s works in Germany and the issues connected with translating his works into German. The guests of the meeting will be: Esther Kinsky (writer, poet, translator) and Katharina Raabe (publisher and editor).

The second goal of the festival is participating in the development of the Polish literary scene, promoting reading as well as valuable phenomena of contemporary literature. Therefore, during the four days of the festival there will be a number of meetings with authors whose works can be inscribed into the horizon established by Zygmunt Haupt; on the basis of the chosen topic, or the proposed literary language – we invite authors whose literary output is not only telling stories, but also, or maybe most importantly, creating a language. Moreover, since Haupt’s work combines the sensitivity of poetry, the imagination of prose, and the attentiveness of reportage, each of these genres will mark its presence in the program of the Festival.

Gorlice will hold meetings with the following authors: Michał Cichy, Urszula Honek, Magdalena Kicińska, Esther Kinsky, Maroš Krajňak, Andrzej Muszyński, Piotr Nesterowicz, Klara Nowakowska, Andrzej Stasiuk, Krzysztof Środa, Adam Wiedemann, Zofia Zaleska. The moderators of the auteur meetings and topical meetings will be: Darek Foks, Bartłomiej Kiełtyka, Kamila Margielska, Andrzej Niewiadomski, PhD, Michał Olszewski, Paweł Panas, PhD, Monika Rogowska-Stangret, PhD, Monika Stopczyk.

We also have good news for all book addicts. During the festival, Gorlice’s book-store Księgarnia Mieszko will have a dedicated bookstall with our guests’ books.

The Festival in Gorlice also includes other art forms. We will open with Kuba Jaworski’s concert, namely Gypsy and the Acid Queen. In his creative work vast space meets detail, and one sound can change the impression the music makes on the audience. It seems that the artist’s imagination wanders the same areas as Haupt’s imagination. We will finish with an exceptional film-literary-musical project “Tutaj” (“Here”). The screening of the film by Kamil Gubała will be accompanied by: Andrzej Stasiuk (reading Zygmunt Haupt’s prose) and Piotr Bukowski (improvising on guitar).

The Festival is organised by the Academic Office of Culture and Art Alma Art, the Stanisław Gabryel Municipal Public Library in Gorlice, and the Czarne Publishing House. The event would not have been possible without the help from this year’s partners: the Goethe Institute in Cracow, the Slovak Institute in Warsaw, the Książkowe Klimaty Publishing House, the Gorlice Culture Centre, the Lemko Union, and Dark Pub in Gorlice.

The Festival program is available for download HERE. The Festival will take place on September 23th–26th 2016. Admission to all events is free.

Since the previously printed edition of works by Zygmunt Haupt had long been sold out, the Czarne Publishing House has decided to finance a re-edition of the “Basque Devil” collection, edited anew by prof. Aleksander Madyda: www.bit.ly/czarne-baskijski-diabel. The book was published on May 25th 2016, also in e-book form. Our festival, therefore, is bringing very measurable results. Finally everyone interested, every Haupt-lover will have the chance to enjoy his stories and reportages.

The current edition of Haupt’s prose contains its most correct form, and at the same time one closest to the author’s intention. The introduction to the collection was written by Andrzej Stasiuk, artistic director of the Zygmunt Haupt Festival: “The weave of thoughts and things in Zygmunt Haupt’s prose creates a fabric so dense that one’s faculty of reason becomes helpless and, in addition to that, completely redundant. (…) The imagined and the expressed become interwoven in the matter of language which, I dare say, has no equal in 20th century Polish literature.”

We also wish to remind you about the difficult situation of the festival, which results from the fact that we have not received funding from MKiDN. Our score enabled us to reapply, again with a negative result.

The situation is difficult but we do not want to give up. We will inform you about any changes in the situation via our website and via Facebook.

The organisers have prepared a program that teems with events focusing on the figure and creative work of the patron, as well as on modern literature and the authors creating it.

During the 10 days of festival, Gorlice and Szymbark will be home to a number of events focusing on the biography and literary output of Zygmunt Haupt, an extraordinary and inequitably forgotten Polish writer. Among the invited guests there will be historians, experts on and lovers of Haupt’s writing, as well as literature researchers – prof. Aleksander Madyda, Andrzej Niewiadomski PhD, Zofia Król PhD, Paweł Panas PhD, Marek Dziedziak. The writer’s son, Arthur Haupt, will be the festival’s special guest.

The program features the vernissage of Zygmunt Haupt’s drawings exhibition (from Arthur Haupt’s collection), the screening of the film “Errata to biography,” and Sławomir Grzymkowski’s monodrama “Non-remembering,” directed by Antoni Ferency. We will also listen to fragments of Haupt’s stories, read by Tomasz Schimscheiner.

We have also invited renowned writers and poets to Gorlice, ones whose creative work in many aspects relates to the writing, and also to the world view of Zygmunt Haupt. Readers will have the opportunity to meet Jurij Andruchowycz, Justyna Bargielska, Waldemar Bawołek, Barbara Klicka, Angelika Kuźniak, Artur Daniel Liskowacki, Weronika Murek, Andrzej Niewiadomski, Wojciech Nowicki, Michał Olszewski, Lidia Ostałowska, Taras Prochaśko, Robert Pucek, Paweł Smoleński, Andrzej Stasiuk, Małgorzata Szejnert, Artur Szlosarek, Ziemowit Szczerek, Krzysztof Środa, Krzysztof Varga, Ewa Winnicka, Agnieszka Wolny-Hamkało, and Bohdan Zadura. The moderators of the auteur meetings will be Darek Foks, Jarosław Klejnocki PhD, Zofia Król PhD, Monika Rogowska-Stangret PhD, Andrzej Stasiuk, and Monika Stopczyk.

The rich literary program will be complemented by interesting musical events. We will listen to Jurij Andruchowycz and Karbido, Laboratorium Pieśni, and Misha Alperin, pianist and composer working with the prestigious record company ECM. Admission to the concerts, as to all festival events, is free.

We invite you to get familiar with the list of GUESTS and the PROGRAM of the festival, and to visit Gorlice and Szymbark in the second half of September.