In Latin, the word litera refers to both a graphic symbol and the entire body of literary works. Literature is an important and special form of culture – both dialogic and self-reflective. This unique quality manifests on an individual, social, intercultural and geopolitical levels. Hence the significance of efforts to ensure mutual cross-fertilisation of literatures from different linguistic areas and intensive circulation of literary works on a global scale. Liter[r]a is our expression of care and efforts to promote Polish literary works abroad and support people who are able to take on literary translation challenges: linguistic, cultural, artistic, social and political.
In a world where communication increasingly assumes the form of slogans and memes, literature provides us with a unique opportunity to understand ourselves and each other to the fullest, also across borders. The Liter[r]a series of translation workshops and author meetings consists of eight events devoted to contemporary Polish literature, organised in four most important cultural and academic centres in Europe: Paris, Berlin, Madrid and Amsterdam.
The dialogic dimension of literature is reflected in the very formula of Liter[r]a events, where we host the co-creators of the intercultural literary dialogue, i.e. authors and translators of their works. During specialist translation workshops, their dialogue will be shared with university students of the Polish language and culture, translation trainees and people keen to explore such professional opportunity. The evening meetings with authors, which are open to a wider audience of experts curators, academics, media and, above all, the community of readers, provide space for an in-depth discussion of the vital role of literary translation as a form of co-creation of contemporary literary texts, as well as the reception and the dialogic potential of Polish literature in individual countries and language areas.
The Liter[r]a series is an initiative of the Olga Tokarczuk Foundation, implemented in cooperation with foreign partners, with the financial support of the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage within the Promotion of Polish Culture Abroad programme for 2025.
On November 14, 2025 in Amsterdam, we organized the last two events of this year’s cycle of the Liter[r]a project, kindly hosted by the University of Amsterdam – Faculty of Humanities and SPUI25. The morning literary translation masterclass, held in one of the magnificent seminar rooms of the PC Hoofthuis, Spuistraat 134, was co-led by the author Urszula Honek and Charlotte Pothuizen, the translator behind the Dutch version of White Nights. Their Witte Nachten (De Bezige Bij 2025) was the locus of their reflection and theoretical and practical discussion about the literary translation process. As a poet migrating towards prose, Honek retains her poetic discipline, which manifests in pauses, concise verses and understatements. Her afterimage-stories, familiar to readers of her poetry, open up additional perspectives, and the entire volume is a saga about a place where the fates of humans and animals and the fate of the land intertwine in very specific ways. Each memory preserves different elements of the story, leaving everyone with their sovereign right to history. The narrative unfurls using resonant language rich in metaphors. Honek frequently suspends the definitive conclusion of her stories, leaving them open-ended.
The session was the fourth translation masterclass offered as part of the Liter[r]a cycle, and we are happy to report that the seminar room was packed! We hope the masterclass will in due course contribute to the publication of more and more books by Polish authors translated into Dutch.
In the evening, we invited the general public to the authors’ meeting at SPUI25, in the very heart of Amsterdam, where Niña Weijers lead a discussion with Urszula Honek and Charlotte Pothuizen. The meeting was held in both Dutch and Polish, with flawless interpretation delivered by Anna Rosłoń.
We would like to thank our guests and the readers who joined us at SPUI25. We extend our heartfelt thanks to the University of Amsterdam and SPUI25 for their hospitality and assistance in organizing the masterclass and the evening event.
We also invite you to have a look at the photographs we took during both events, and watch the recording of the authors’ meeting on our YouTube channel.
The events in Amsterdam marked the fourth and final part of the Liter[r]a cycle of translation masterclasses and authors’ meetings, with previous parts in Paris, Berlin and Madrid. We look forward to promoting Polish contemporary literature in other language areas next year.
Urszula Honek – (born 1987) – author of four poetry collections Sporysz, Pod wezwaniem, Zimowanie and Poltergeist, and the short story collection Białe noce (White nights). Her work has been featured in both print and online journals, newspapers, magazines and literary publications. The winner of the Grand Prix of the Rainer Maria Rilke Poetry Competition, the Kraków UNESCO City of Literature Award, the Adam Włodek Award and the Stanisław Barańczak Award, part of the Poznań Literary Prize. Her debut book of prose, White Nights translated by Kate Webster were long-listed for the Booker Prize 2024. In 2023, she won both the Conrad Award and the Kościelski Award, given to the most promising Polish writer under the age of 40. She comes from Racławice, near Gorlice.
photo: Jacek Taran
Charlotte Pothuizen
– literary translator, working with many prominent Polish writers, including Olga Tokarczuk (Drive Your Plough Over the Bones of the Dead and Czuły narrator [The Tender Narrator], together with Dirk Zijlstra), Szczepan Twardoch (The King of Warsaw, Królestwo [The Kingdom]), Marcin Wicha(Rzeczy, których nie wyrzuciłem [Things I Didn’t Throw Away]), Mikołaj Łoziński (Stramer), Tadeusz Borowski (together with Karol Lesman) and Włodzimierz Odojewski. She graduated in Polish Studies and Musicology (MA) from the University of Amsterdam and the University of Warsaw. Her literary translator’s career began in 2006, and since 2017 she has been translating literature from Polish into Dutch full-time. In 2022, she received the Aleida Schot Award for translations of contemporary Polish literature.
Niña Weijers studied literary theory in Amsterdam and Dublin. She has published short stories, essays and articles in various literary magazines, such as Das Magazin, De Gids and De Revisor. Her debut novel The Consequences (De consequenties) was published in May 2014 and went on to win the Anton Wachter Prize 2014 for best first novel, the Opzij Feminist Literature Prize, the Lucy B. & C.W. van der Hoogt Prize, and was shortlisted for the Libris Prize 2015 and the Golden Boekenuil 2015, the two most important Dutch and Flemish literary awards. The novel has also been published in English, French, German, Polish and Czech. Published in March 2022, a collection of essays entitled Zelf doen was short-listed for the Boekenbon Literatuurprijs 2022, while Cassandra, published in 2023, earned her the E. du Perron Award. She lives in Amsterdam.
Partners
This project is co-financed by the Minister of Culture and National Heritage
of the Republic of Poland from the Culture Promotion Fund.