The Krakow Festival Office and the UNESCO City of Literature in Krakow would like to invite participants to a new literary residency programme for women writers and translators from Ukraine and Belarus. The programme is being implemented as part of the city’s “Krakow Women” project, dedicated to the role of women and equality. 

The residency is dedicated to Janina Katz, a Krakow-based writer, poet and translator who died in 2013. She was forced to leave Poland in 1969 due to an anti-Semitic campaign. She spent the rest of her life in Copenhagen, was the recipient of many prestigious literary prizes in Denmark, and translated the works of Wislawa Szymborska, Zbigniew Herbert and Slawomir Mrożek into Danish. 

Today Krakow wishes to be a safe haven for female authors forced to leave their countries. The Janina Katz Residency Programme for writers and translators from Belarus and Ukraine stems from the conviction that Krakow is open, hospitable, and committed to women’s rights and has a special role to perform in relation to women artists from beyond the eastern border.

The organisers of the Programme will provide the applicant selected during the call with a two-month stay in the Potocki Palace in the city centre, a grant of PLN 2,500 gross per month, reimbursement of travel expenses to and from Krakow, material and logistic support, as well as the opportunity to get to know the local literary and publishing landscape and to establish valuable professional contacts.

Applicants for the residency should be fluent in Polish or English and have so far published at least one book (fiction or non-fiction), screenplay (film or theatre) or translation work.

The deadline for applications is 6 March 2023. Deadline for the residency is May-June 2023. To apply, send an application to residencies@miastoliteratury.pl. 

Adrian Andrzejewski