Gdańskie Spotkania Literackie

About the Meetings

The Found in Translation Gdańsk Literary Meetings are a unique literary festival dedicated predominantly to the art of translation. For each edition, we invite eminent writers, translators and literary critics from Poland and abroad to talk about literature and translation. The meetings present the possibility of looking at literature from a slightly different angle, acting as a springboard to talk about the world and the dynamic changes it undergoes. On the one hand, translations are an intimate confrontation with the text; on the other, a way of building relationships between people, cultures, and art disciplines.

 

The meetings have been taking place since 2013, every two years – interchangeably with the European Poet of Freedom Festival. Each edition comes with a new leitmotiv, which serves as the basis for the entire programme.
2013 – Scandinavian literature
2015 – English-language literature
2017 – journey to the East
2019 – small languages – great literature
2021 – fantasy edition (taking place online due to the pandemic)
2023 – dramatic edition

 

 

Each incarnation of the festival brings new conversations, meetings, and workshops for children, youth, students, critics, and journalists. Each edition is also accompanied by a different series of artistic events – to date, these have included exhibitions, performances, and film screenings, among others. We also strive to broaden the festival’s offer by publications on translation and the leitmotiv of the given year’s event.
Since 2015, “Found in Translation” is accompanied by the award ceremony of the Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński Translation Award. The festival also presents an opportunity to meet the given year’s winners.

The programme of the first Gdańsk Literary Meetings was designed by Katarzyna Tubylewicz. Since 2015, it has been jointly created by Magda Heydel, Urszula Kropiwiec, Justyna Czechowska, and Aleksandra Szymańska. For each edition, the Programme Board invites experts in the field covered in the given year to co-produce the event. In 2023, for the dramatic edition, the programme is co-authored by Anna Lewandowska from the literary section of Warsaw’s Nowy Theatre.