The motto of the 2026 edition of the Mountains of Literature Festival is Territories
While Territory demands loyalty, Terroir demands attentiveness. Territory insists one dies for it, while Terroir asks only to respect it, not to exploit it excessively, not to treat it like a resource – inspired by the distinction proposed by Olga Tokarczuk, we invite you to this year’s Mountains of Literature Festival. The 12th edition will take place between 10 and 18 July 2026 in 30 locations in Kłodzko Land, Wałbrzych Conurbation and Dzierżoniów Valley.
For the first time, we’re organizing our event in cooperation with the Mountains of Literature Festival Foundation, established by us last year as a separate non-governmental organization specializing in production of big festival events.
And the Mountains of Literature Festival doesn’t stop growing. It will be yet another record edition – this year we’ve prepared for you… over 170 events! They will take place in the biggest so far number of locations. We’ll be visited – counting modestly – by 240 guests, the biggest group among them being of course writers, but also: magicians from Lublin, visual artists, representatives of the academia, music bands, youth amateur theatre groups, actors, journalists, activists.
Also, the poetry and educational segments (Little Mountains of Literature for children and the youth, and Flying People’s University for adults) will be the biggest so far. Educational activities are of particular importance for us, and during last year’s edition, very often there weren’t enough places for all willing to take part in them. Listening to comments participants of previous festivals’ participants, we’ve also prepared the biggest in our history number of nature walks – which will be a special form of commentary on the motto of the festival: Territories. There will also be public readings by eminent actors, and authors as well. We will screen important movies and meet some of their creators. Traditionally, we’ll invite amateur theatres to perform on professional stages. Also, for the first time we’ll organize a film segment for children. We obviously won’t forget about important anniversaries.
Let’s repeat: the motto of the event will be Territories. We will approach this notion from various perspectives, often far from clear-cut and obvious. Let’s quote the beginning of the famous lecture which Olga Tokarczuk gave in December last year during the conference “Poland is Here” in Wałbrzych. Even this short fragment contains many inspirations, which make us think of territory as a disturbingly complex phenomenon.
I was born a dozen or so years after the war in Sulechów (Züllichau) in the northern borders of the historical Silesia. For the first decade of my life, I lived in Klenica (Kleinitz) in Lubusz Land, then in Kietrz (Katscher) in Opolian Silesia. Then I moved to Warsaw for six years to study, and it was a journey not only to a different climate zone and community, but also to the land of some previously unknown to me nuances of speech. Then I returned to Wrocław (Breslau) and Wałbrzych (Waldenburg), to finally find my own place outside Nowa Ruda (Neurode).
An attempt to understand the particular nature of the Western and Northern Territories and their postwar fate will of course accompany us throughout the festival. It will start with reading aloud fragments of the new, yet unpublished novel by Olga Tokarczuk, performed by the author. But the discussion on the phenomenon of the notion of „territories” will go well beyond the reflection on the so-called Regained Lands. They’re an excellent exemplification of the problem, yet the well-known and intuitively understood definition of a territory demands, in our opinion, stripping it of appearances and a new analysis from a global and – most of all – multidimensional perspective. We thought we should look at the meaning of many idioms/set expressions, which contain this category. State territory, dependent, disputed, protected, occupied, my, your, our territory… What does it really mean? And isn’t it so that as humans, we let ourselves be manipulated into this notion as the only one defining our place on Earth?
Let us speak Olga Tokarczuk again. In a lecture given in May this year in Florence, she made a particularly important and very inspiring distinction between Territory and a much more ambiguous space, in which we actually live, and which she called – using the dictionary of wine makers and producers of olive and coffee – Terroir.
A border is to determine the size of a territory. To encompass a construct which pretends to be natural and present it as if it has existed from time immemorial, while actually it is an effect of negotiations, conflicts, legal acts and violence. The idea of a territory assumes that the Earth is only a background for human activities, a stage on which human phobias are played out: politics, economy, history. Because territory becomes a being only when humans, by dividing and setting borders, provide it with meaning and importance. … In this way, the act of an overriding identity was created and everyone agreed that we all belong to some territory.
And this is how the writer spoke about Terroir in her lecture:
Every thing on the Earth is a creation of its Terroir – a unique and complex feature of some place, with its soil, water, air, attitude towards seasons and the journey of the sun in the sky, climate, wind, living organisms and the culture of human beings. And most of all with that which is elusive, incomprehensible – history and memory. Every place has its quality, just like the human being belonging to this place – their body and senses, their stories, culture, subtle identity, which often cannot be described by the right word.
The essay-lecture also contains a comparison of both notions-spaces:
The territory likes the language of the law, it communicates in articles, treaties, deeds of ownership. It is a number, surface area, statistic. You can divide it, sell it, regain it, lose it. In this sense, it is always potentially temporary, it always has to pass into the hands of others, even if it declares its own eternity and constancy. Terroir refers to our own five senses and intuition as the sixth sense, it speaks through participation, it expresses itself through stories. This tension reveals the political dimension of both notions. While Territory demands loyalty, Terroir demands attentiveness. Territory insists one dies for it, while Terroir asks only to respect it, not to exploit it excessively, not to treat it like a resource. You can love Territory in an abstract way, without knowing it. Terroir doesn’t allow for such distanced love – it demands closeness and patience; it yearns for attachment.
The form of this introduction to our event doesn’t allow for elaborating on the idea of Terroir, especially that the quoted essay by Olga Tokarczuk hasn’t been printed yet, and it’s difficult to debate on a text not yet publicly known, from which we can quote only a few short excerpts. Therefore, getting ready for a future discussion on the notion of Terroir, during the festival we will attempt to focus on the diagnosis of the current state of Territory.
The introduction to those considerations will be the already mentioned public reading of an excerpt from Olga Tokarczuk’s new novel, performed by the author, which will open this year’s Mountains of Literature Festival. The Nobel Prize winner’s words will be heard again, interpreted by Maja Ostaszewska, Maria Peszek, Andrzej Seweryn and Maciej Stuhr, who will read excerpts from the novel Anna In w grobowcach świata [Anna In in the Tombs of the World]. The final public reading will be a short story Przeprawa [Crossing] by Wiesław Dymny from the volume Droga na Dziki Zachód [The Road to the Wild West] performed by Robert Więckiewicz. And already after publishing the first programme, we decided to add one more event – reading aloud of the short story Schronienie [Shelter] by the author, Olga Tokarczuk, and Maja Ostaszewska.
We will be visited by Polish and foreign authors. Georgi Gospodinov, Bulgarian writer hailed a future Nobel Prize winner, will come with his latest book I wszystko stało się księżycem [And Everything Became the Moon]. Our audience will also meet Alberto Manguel, Argentinian writer and researcher, the author of A History of Reading.
We will speak about books – new ones, not yet released, but also those which still resonate after many years: by Joanna Bator, Natalia de Barbaro, Marek Bieńczyk, Anna Bikont, Katarzyna Boni, Karolina Ćwiek-Rogalska, Jacek Dehnel, Joanna Kuciel-Frydryszak, Krzysztof Łapiński, Artur Nowak and Stanisław Obirek, Paweł Piotr Reszka, Anda Rottenberg and Mirosław Bałka, Paweł Sołtys, Tomasz Stawiszyński, Małgorzata Szejnert, Agnieszka Taborska, Piotr Tarczyński, Wojciech Tochman and Ewa Woydyłło.
You will also see on our stages, among others, Anna Kańtoch, Adam Leszczyński, Adam Michnik, Kacper Pobłocki, Radek Rak, Wit Szostak, Kazimiera Szczuka, Mariusz Szczygieł and Antonina Tosiek.
We will organize panel discussions on artificial intelligence, conspiracy theories, dark sides of spirituality, migrations as a way of life. Some discussions we’ve planned were inspired by the 30th anniversary of awarding the Nobel Prize to Wisława Szymborska and the 100th anniversary of Maria Janion’s birth.
Traditionally, we invite for the Czech segment – this year we’ll be visited by Jaroslav Rudiš, Klára Vlasáková an Jonáš Zbořil.
In the poetry segment, curated by Karol Maliszewski, we’ll listen to, among others, Zofia Bałdyga, Wojciech Bonowicz, Sylwia Chutnik, Jul Łyskawa, Krzysztof Siwczyk and Julia Szychowiak.
The meetings with our guests will be moderated by, among others: Urszula Glensk, Paweł Goźliński, Jana Karpienko, Katarzyna Kasia, Eliza Kącka, Leszek Koczanowicz, Aneta Korycińska, Grzegorz Markowski, Michał Nogaś, Małgorzata Omilanowska, Amelia Sarnowska, Sławomir Sierakowski, Jakub Skurtys and Olga Wróbel.
The motto of this year’s Festival will be present not only during meetings with writers, panel discussions and debates, but also during the particularly important for as educational segment, that is the Flying People’s University. Among guests conducting workshops and seminars, as well as nature walks, there will be Edwin Bendyk, Karolina Kuszlewicz, Radek Rak, Dorota Sumińska, Katarzyna Szaulińska, Wit Szostak, Magdalena Środa, Adam Wajrak, Halszka Witkowska and Urszula Zajączkowska.
In the equally important segment of the Little Mountains of Literature, organized for children and the youth, we invite for meetings, workshops and lessons with, among others, Boguś Janiszewski, Roksana Jędrzejewska-Wróbel, Krzysztof Łapiński, Joanna Rusinek and Michał Rusinek. What is more, we’ll speak to Magdalena Bigaj and Adam Mirek about children on the web, and we’ll invite for screenings of children’s films and conversations about them.
Just like every year, we’ll also screen film masterpieces: Man of Marble on the 100th anniversary of Andrzej Wajda’s birth, and we’ll talk about the film with Krystyna Janda, and Franz Kafka, the latest film by Agnieszka Holland, who will also be our guest.
There will be 9 concerts. The performers will be Hania Rani (in the project Hania Rani presents Chilling Bambino), Ralph Kaminski & My Best Band In The World, Kasia Sienkiewicz, Renata Przemyk (with the project Women of Jarocin), Spięty and Pablopavo i Ludziki. Maria Peszek and Bartek Wąsik will present (twice) the project Midsummer Night’s Song, an interpretation of Song of the Midsummer Sabbath by Jan Kochanowski for voice and piano, and John Porter will celebrate the 45th anniversary of the cult album Helicopters.
The art segment will be built around the collective exhibition Rock, Paper, Scissors curated by Michał Suchora in cooperation with Jaga Hupało, Anna Klimczak, Sylwia Krzemianowska, Magda Publicewicz, Sefa Sagir and Jakub Duszyński.
We will present a variety of theatre activities: from performances combined with workshops for children, a performance by children from children’s homes alongside Żaneta Łabudzka, Czesław Mozil and Andrzej Seweryn, and an outdoor-circus show inspired by the prose of the Nobel Prize winner Isaac Bashevis Singer.
This year, our creative writing workshop is designed for young people aged 14 to 19, and it will be moderated by Sylwia Chutnik. It is preceded by a competition under the slogan ”How it will be then”, inviting to reflect on the future and imagine a vision of the world in the year 2046 – a reality shaped by climate changes, development of digital technologies, social media and dynamically changing social relations.
Come join us!
