2020

January:

  • A weekend in Wisława Szymborska’s flat in Krakow auctioned as part of the Great Orchestra of Christmas Charity event in January 2020. The funds raised in the auction were used to purchase medical equipment for the treatment of children.

March:

  • The Wisława Szymborska Foundation decided to grant the 2019 Adam Włodek Award to Małgorzata Lebda as a stipend to write a collection of short stories to be titled Łakome and also to the artist known as Łukasz Kaźmierczak/Łucja Kuttig to write a book of poems, Orzechnia.

April:

  • Allowances granted as part of the “Wszelki wypadek” (For All Eventualities) Aid Fund.
  • Having considered all the applications for financial aid, the Board of the Wisława Szymborska Foundation granted allowances to 41 individuals. A special round of aid granting called “For All Eventualities. Wisława Szymborska Foundation for Men and Women of Letters” was held in response to the difficult situation caused by the COVID-19 epidemic. The financial aid was forwarded to authors and translators who had lost their sources of income. At the same time, the Foundation suspended the granting of the year’s Wisława Szymborska Award. Creating the Aid Fund was made possible by support from the Foundation’s partners and sponsors, whom we would like to thank for the assistance they have extended to the literary community. These are: BNP Paribas, Sobiesław Zasada Automotive, Browar Tenczynek, Book Targ, Allegro, Lubimyczytać.pl, and Legimi.
  • “No End of Joy, or Actors and Actresses for the Time of Quarantine”: actors and actresses read Szymborska’s poems from their homes. The Foundation invited artists to prepare recordings of their favourite poems by the Nobelist. From 1 April onwards, the materials were published daily at 11 am on the Wisława Szymborska Facebook profile and on our Foundation’s YouTube channel. The contributors included Krystyna Janda, Janusz Gajos, Danuta Stenka, Agata Buzek, Wojciech Malajkat, Sonia Bohosiewicz, and other great actresses and actors.
  • The Foundation promoted reading during the lockdown through its Joy of Reading campaign: books for the time of quarantine were recommended by Wisława Szymborska Award laureates, such as Marta Podgórnik, Jacek Podsiadło, Julia Fiedorczuk, Jakub Kornhauser, Julia Fiedorczuk, and Justyna Czechowska.

May:

  • The book of poems Canción negra (Czarna piosenka [Black song]) published in Spain by the Madrid-based publishers Nórdica Libros, with translations by Abel Murcia Soriano and Katarzyna Mołoniewicz, and illustrations by Kike de la Rubia.

June:

  • Premiere of a new edition of Wszelki wypadek (Krakow: Znak, 2020). The collection of twenty-seven poems includes such favourites as “Fotografia tłumu”, “Przemówienie w biurze znalezionych rzeczy”, and “Wywiad z dzieckiem”. Wszelki wypadek (known in English as Couldn’t Have) was Szymborska’s sixth published book of poems. This is its first Polish re-edition after nearly 50 years, released as part of the prestigious Wisława Szymborska collection illustrated with the poet’s typescripts and manuscripts.

July: 

  • Brazilian publication of Szymborska’s biography by Anna Bikont and Joanna Szczęsna. The Portuguese title is Quinquilharias e recordações. The biography was translated by Eneida Favre and published by Editora Âyiné.
  • LAMY Joy Szymborska fountain pens launched by Lamy. The nib is marked with the poet’s initials, and  the reservoir body bears the title of her poem “The Joy of Writing”. The set also includes a bookmark with a fragment of the poem in the poet’s handwriting printed on it and a visualisation of the W. Szymborska Joy White fountain pen. 

September:

  • A book of Wisława Szymborska’s poems Para o meu coração num domingo published in Brazil in Regina Przybycień and Gabriel Borowski’s Portuguese translation (Rio de Janeiro: Companhia das Letras, 2020).
  • Opening of the exhibition “Szymborska’s Look” at the Wola Cultural Centre in Warsaw, a joint project of the Association of the residents and Friends of Kolonia Wawelberga and the Wola Cultural Centre, part of the Hipolit and Ludwika [Wawelberg] Festival. The show included photographs of Wisława Szymborska by Joanna Helander, in addition to the poet’s trinkets and collages. 

October:

  • Premiere of the theatrical production My Darling Wisełka, My Dearest Zbyszek based on a collection of letters exchanged between Wisława Szymborska and Zbigniew Herbert, directed by  Mikołaj Grabowski at the Stary Theatre in Krakow.
  • “Poetry Night: Szymborska, Bonowicz, Różycki” event held in collaboration with the Księgarnia Pod Globusem (booksellers) and Wydawnictwo a5 (publishers). The event held on 10 October at the Globe Bookshop at 1 Długa Street in Krakow included a poetry reading workshop conducted by Wojciech Bonowicz, a poet, writer, and journalist, followed by a meeting with the poet Tomasz Różycki. Poems from Różycki’s book Kapitan X were read by Paweł Sanakiewicz, a theatre actor. 

November:

  • Wydawnictwo a5 published Wiersze wybrane. Wydanie nowe, uzupełnione (Selected poems. A new extended edition). The new selection of Wisława Szymborska’s poetry is extended to include poems from the books Here and Enough in addition to several unfinished pieces deciphered from manuscripts by Ryszard Krynicki. 
  • Premiere of Wisława Szymborska’s biography Szymborska. Znaki szczególne (Szymborska. The distinguishing marks) by Joanna Gromek-Illg (Krakow: Znak, 2020).

“I was interested not so much in her external life as in the poet’s psyche, her inner experiences. These are areas that she guarded ferociously, always repeating: ‘that’s something to be looked into after my death,’ which effectively intimidated her interlocutors. Based on thousands of her letters, but also conversations with Wisława’s friends and acquaintances, I have tried to reconstruct the part of her biography that she hid most carefully.”

(from the Introduction)

December:

  • A book of Szymborska’s poetry published in Croatia: Svijet koji nije od ovoga svijeta, in Croatian translation by Đurđica Čilić (Zagreb: Fraktura 2020).
  • The Board of the Wisława Szymborska Foundation announced its call for candidates for the 2021 Wisława Szymborska Award.