The motto of Conrad Festival 2022: COMMUNITIES brings to mind two opposite notions – it can be perceived as an opportunity as well as a threat. “Is contemporary literature aware (and does it make us aware) of the dynamics?” asks Prof. Michał Paweł Markowski, the Artistic Director of the festival. The most important literary event in Poland takes place from 24 until 30 October.

It will be preceded by the series of meetings and talks with esteemed authors, including Abdulrazak Gurnah, a Tanzanian-born British novelist and academic awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 2021.

The main instalment of the festival will feature Italian philosopher Roberto Esposito, Carmen Maria Machado, author and lecturer at the University of Pennsylvania, who publishes in The New Yorker and The New York Times, and Eva Meijer, Dutch author, artist, singer, songwriter and philosopher, among others.

The culmination and grand finale of festival will be the Conrad Award Gala for the best literary debut of the last year. The five nominees will be announced on 3 October, with the gala and awarding ceremony held on 30 October at the ICE Kraków Congress Centre.

Conrad Festival is organised by the City of Kraków, KBF and Tygodnik Powszechny Foundation. The events of the main programme as well as the accompanying events will take place live in Kraków with recordings will be made available on the KBF YouTube channel, Facebook pages of the Conrad Festival and the Tygodnik Powszechny weekly, and PLAY KRAKÓW VOD platform.