Literra – Lviv 2026 - Fundacja Olgi Tokarczuk

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 ten events devoted to contemporary Polish literature, organised in five most important cultural and academic centres in Europe: Paris, Sofia, Lviv, Granada and Oslo.

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 2026.

On the 10^th of September 2026 in Lviv, at the Faculty of Philology of the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, we invited adepts of literary translation for an advanced masterclass/workshop co-led by the author Małgorzata Lebda and the translator Anna Zotova, based on the poetry book Mer de Glace (2021, published by Warstwy; Ukrainian edition: Krok, 2026). The local Department of Polish Philology was established on 1 April 2004 as an independent unit of the Department of Slavic Philology. However, the university’s traditions of Polish studies date back to 1817 and the first department of the history of the Polish language and literature. In 2017, the department was awarded the title of ‘Ambassador of the Polish Language Abroad’, conferred by the Senate of the Republic of Poland and the Council for the Polish Language of the Polish Academy of Sciences. The meeting with the author and translator, held in the afternoon, was open to the general public as part of the Translation as a Practice of the Future cluster of the Lviv International BookForum Festival. The Lviv BookForum is Ukraine’s most important cultural festival and one of the largest literary events in Central and Eastern Europe. It is organised by the Publishers’ Forum, an organisation that has been active since 1994. From a small initiative by local enthusiasts, the event has grown into a major institution promoting reading, the development of the book market and intercultural dialogue, representing Ukraine at international book fairs and involved in many prestigious literary projects. BookForum’s has been a substantial contribution to Lviv being awarded the status of a UNESCO City of Literature, and the Forum itself remains a key cultural event in the country.

Mer de Glace (2021) is a collection of poems expressing an increasingly pronounced ecological sensibility. The book offers a view of the world from a perspective in which diversity, the multiplicity of languages, and symbiosis within the world of human and non-human beings all come to the fore. It is a poetic meditation on the connection between the body and the natural world. Originally published in Polish, the book has been translated into other languages and now, due to the efforts of the Krok publishing house and the translator Anna Zotova, into Ukrainian. It is, thus, also an example of a different kind of symbiosis: the result of a creative literary collaboration accross languages and cultures. The afternoon meeting with the writer and translator at this year’s Lviv International BookForum Festival was moderated by Olesia Nakhlik (standing in for Ostap Slyvynskyi).

Liter[r]a – Literary translation masterclass

Led by Małgorzata Lebda and Anna Zotova, Mer de Glace (2026, Krok)
Date and time: 10.09.2026, 9:50 am–1:10 pm
Venue: Faculty of Philology of the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv
room 312, Universytetska St, 1, Lviv, L’vivs’ka oblast, Ukraine, 79000
Registration through the office of the Department of Polish Philology

Liter[r]a – Authors’ meeting with Małgorzata Lebda and Anna Zotova, Mer de Glace

Part of the Translation as a Practice of the Future cluster, Lviv International BookForum Festival
Date and time: 10.09.2026, 3:30 pm
Venue: Культурний Хаб Південь/Pivden Cultural Hub,
Ярослава Стецька 11 (Stetska 11), Lviv
https://program.bookforum.ua/

Małgorzata Lebda – poet and writer. Ultramarathon runner. She was born and brought up in a hamlet in the Beskid Sądecki mountains. She currently lives in a country house amongst the meadows of the Sejny region, on the north-eastern edge of Poland, with her husband and fifteen animal companions. She is the author of seven collections of poetry. In 2022, she received the Wisława Szymborska Prize for her collection Mer de Glace (2021). The collection was published in the Italian translation by Linda Del Sarto (Valigie Rosse, 2024), in Serbian – by Biserka Rajčić (Treći Trg, 2026), in English – by Mira Rosenthal (Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2026), and now also in Ukrainian – by Anna Zotova (Krok, 2026). Danish, Spanish, Lithuanian and Swedish editions are forthcoming. She has recently published the poetry collection Dunaj. Chyłe pola (2025), awarded the Kościelski Foundation Prize. In 2021, she ran 1,113 km from the source of the Vistula River in the Beskids to its mouth on the Baltic Sea as part of the poetic and activist project ‘Water Reading’.

Anna Zotova – a translator of contemporary Polish poetry, a poet and a games localiser. She is the author of the Ukrainian translation of Małgorzata Lebda’s poetry collection Mer de Glace (Krok, 2026). In her translation practice, she focuses on independent, experimental and counter-cultural voices in contemporary Polish poetry. She has translated works by e.g. Konrad Góra, Przemysław Suchanecki, Michał Mytnik, Joanna Bociąg, Emilia Konwerska, Jerzy Jarniewicz and Filip Zawada. She graduated in Polish Studies and Translation Studies from the Lesya Ukrainka Volyn National University, and in Polish Philology from the Jan Długosz University in Częstochowa. She is a fellow of international residency programmes run by the Wisława Szymborska Foundation in Poland and the Genshagen Foundation in Germany. She works with brands as a narrative strategist, creating communication concepts. She grew up by Lake Świtaź, amidst lakes and forests; consequently, nature and the elements hold a special sacred significance for her, forming the centre for both the poetry she writes and that which she translates. She lives and works in Kyiv.

Ostap Slyvynsky – a Ukrainian translator, poet, essayist and literary scholar. He is the author of five collections of poetry and his poems have been published in the United States, Germany, Poland, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, North Macedonia and Latvia.

He translates Polish, English, Bulgarian, Macedonian and Belarusian literature into Ukrainian, including works by authors such as Georgi Gospodinov, Hanna Krall, Czesław Miłosz, Jacek Podsiadło, Tadeusz Różewicz, Andrzej Stasiuk, Charles Simic, Goce Smilevski, Marcin Świetlicki, James Tate, Olga Tokarczuk, Derek Walcott and William Carlos Williams. He has received numerous awards for his work as a translator and his contribution to culture, including the UNESCO City of Literature Award (Lviv, 2020) and the Medal for Merit to Polish Culture (2014). In 2024, he was nominated for the Derek Walcott Prize for poetry. He lives in Lviv, Ukraine.

Olesya Nakhlik – a literary scholar and comparatist, works at the Department of Applied Linguistics at Lviv Polytechnic National University. Author of The Ukrainian Cultural and Axiological Reception of 20^th-Century Polish Literature(1991–2018) (Lviv 2022) and over 40 publications on the specific nature of the Ukrainian reception of contemporary Polish literature. Winner of the 11^th Jerzy Giedroyc Competition for her doctoral thesis (Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Ukraine).