The wing of the Kraków Municipal Office fronting ul. Poselska bears an unimposing plaque that provides information about a fact of great significance for contemporary literary Kraków. It reads in Polish: “Around 1869 Józef Konrad Korzeniowski, Joseph Conrad, son of a wandering poet, lived the days of his youth in a house that used to stand here. He introduced the Polish spirit into English literature, whose treasure he became.” The brief quotation from Conrad’s Notes on Life and Letters concerning the author’s youthful experiences in Kraków follows, in English: “It was in that old royal and academical city that I ceased to be a child, became a boy, had known the friendships, the admirations, the thoughts and the indignations of that age”.

The spectacular success Joseph Conrad achieved in English, a language he had only learnt later in life, and his international writing career inspired the organisers of the greatest literary event in contemporary Kraków – the annual Conrad Festival, which attracts stars of literature from all over the world.