Literature

Visegrad Literary Residencies – spring 2015

On May 11, 2015, scholarship stays began in Budapest, Bratislava, Krakow and Prague as part of the next edition of the international project – “Visegrad Literary Residencies”. Four authors came to Krakow to implement their projects and participate in author meetings and literary events. During the spring edition of the project, Villa Decius will host Krisztina Galgoczi – a Hungarian literary critic, Marek Debnar – a Slovak essayist and reportage, Břetislav Ditrych – a Czech essayist, author of non-fiction, poet and prose, and Joanna Szczepanik – art critic, journalist and lecturer.

Marek Debnar (1979)

Researcher, teacher, essayist and author of non-fiction. After completing his philosophical studies in Bratislava, he obtained a doctorate in philosophy; the topic of his dissertation was the role of the author and the subject in philosophy and literature. Currently, he works as an academic teacher in the field of ethics and a linguistics researcher at the Faculty of Humanities of the Constantine the Philosopher University in Nitra. He has published several essays on theoretical and philosophical topics, critical studies, and one book systematizing the results of theoretical and literary research and analyzing their impact on the field of philosophy. Twelve years ago in Krakow, Marek Debnar wrote stories based on real events, the content of which was later changed in order to enrich them with different points of view; now he wants to use his stay in Krakow to give these texts their final form, taking into account the current perspective.

Břetislav Ditrych (1942)

Czech essayist, non-fiction author, poet and prose writer; he graduated in economics and business organization. He has published numerous texts of various nature, including: books of non-fiction, especially in the field of aviation history, sports, humanities and regional history, four poetry collections, two larger prose works, short stories, two reports, interviews and articles on visual arts, literature and history. For his journalistic work he received the Egon Erwin Kisch Award (2009), and for outstanding achievements in the field of non-fiction he received the Miroslav Ivanov Award (2007, 2012). In Krakow, he will work on a novella about Jewish emigrants living in this city during World War II and after its end.

Krisztina Galgoczi (1962)

Literary critic and psychodrama assistant. She studied drama theory and obtained a PhD in contemporary drama from a gender perspective; then she developed her interest in history and drama in particular, conducting classes on the Holocaust and obtaining qualifications in psychodrama. Previously, she worked as a lecturer at the Department of Intercultural Studies and at the University of Theater and Film Arts. She is currently working on a book about her search for truth and the search itself, based on the blog she ran during her research period. The topic of the book refers to her personal experiences – in early childhood she lost her father in mysterious circumstances.

Joanna Szczepanik (1977)

Art critic, journalist and lecturer. She completed master’s studies in Wrocław and doctoral studies in humanities in Warsaw. She is the author of several texts on contemporary culture, as well as a book devoted to the Slovenian artistic collective Neue Slowenische Kunst. In her latest projects, she addressed the topic of contemporary Mexican culture and the concept of space and “genius loci”, conducting a series of interviews with contemporary Polish artists. Currently, he works as an independent lecturer in Szczecin. As a continuation of the literary reportage project started in Budapest, she will work on a series of essays based on conversations with Polish writers about identity and creativity.

“Visegrad Literary Residencies”

is an initiative of the International Visegrad Fund. The program is addressed to writers, poets, essayists, critics, literary translators and journalists from the Visegrad Group countries (Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Hungary). The project is based on the partnership of four institutions from the V4 countries: Institutu umeni in Prague, Petőfi Irodalmi Múzeum in Budapest, Villa Decius Association in Krakow and Literarné informačné centrum in Bratislava.

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