The Conrad Festival is the biggest international literary event in Poland and one of the biggest in Europe. It presents world literature from all corners of the globe rooted in various cultures and growing out of diverse experiences, as well as works by Polish authors representing various backgrounds and generations. Authors from all parts of Poland and the world come to Krakow to work on the art of translation and mutual understanding again and again. This year’s motto of the festival is ‘Radical Hope’.

‘Plenty Coups responded to the collapse of his civilisation with radical hope. What makes this hope radical is that it is directed toward a future goodness that transcends the current ability to understand what it is.’ – this concept described by Jonathan Lear will be the theme of the 17th Conrad Festival. In the essay Radical Hope, the philosopher evokes the fate of the Crow Indian tribe under the leadership of chief Plenty Coups in the face of the complete annihilation of their culture during the colonisation of North America – a starting point for a fundamental question: what happens to people experiencing the end of the world they have known so far as a result of wars, natural disasters, the diagnosis of an incurable disease or even the loss of their jobs. We will search for the answers together with writers from different corners of the globe: Chloe Dalton (Raising Hare), Kamel Daoud (The Meursault Investigation and Houri), Yan Ge (Strange Beasts of China and Elsewhere), Abdulrazak Gurnah (Afterlives), Vincenzo Latronico (Perfection), Auður Ava Ólafsdóttir (Scar and DJ Bambi), Emily St. John Mandel (Station Eleven) or Colm Tóibín (Brooklyn). Polish guests include Małgorzata Halber, Weronika Murek, Łukasz Orbitowski, Ishbel Szatrawska and Ziemowit Szczerek. Discussions on literature will be held at the Potocki Palace during ‘Reading Lessons’ aimed at young people and excluded groups (including people with hearing difficulties), which will be hosted by Agnieszka Dauksza, Marcin Wilk and Katarzyna Kubisiowska, as well as in Kraków’s small bookshops – among others, with Miroslava Kuľkova in Bonobo Bookshops, Ostap Ukraintes in CUD Bookshop, Antonina Tosiek in Karakter Bookshops, Szymon Kloska and Anna Marchewka (discussion What Do We Need Classics For?) in Abecadło Bookshop. Villa Decius will host the première of the anthology Literatura na uchodźctwie (Literature in Exile), while the Potocki Palace will host discussion on the new issue of “Czas Literatury” and Polish Book Institute will host Przemysław Czapliński with his latest monograph Rozbieżne emancypacje. Przewodnik po prozie 1976–2020 (Diverging Emancipations. A Guide to Prose 1976-2020), while the Pod Baranami Cinema will screen films including literary themes. The ‘Book Congress’ and ‘Word2Picture’ book industry sections are also part of the festival – the latter will feature a lecture by the strategist and trend analyst Sem Devillart. The youngest readers can take part in a city game, a literary walk, workshops and meetings with authors (Michał Rusinek or Boguś Janiszewski). The festival will culminate with awarding the Conrad Award for the best prose début in 2024.