The Polish Cultural Institute in Madrid will present “The Firebird” (Báltica Editorial), an unpublished anthology of poems by Zuzanna Ginczanka, one of the most prominent voices in Polish poetry between the wars, this coming Thursday, June 25.
The event will take place at 7:00 p.m. at the Antonio Machado Bookstore (Plaza de las Salesas, 11, Madrid). Admission is free until capacity is reached. Writer Mercedes Monmany and Elżbieta Bortkiewicz, the book’s translator, will participate in the event.
“The Firebird” brings together for the first time in Spanish a selection of Zuzanna Ginczanka’s poems. Among them is her best-known work, “Non omnis moriar,” in which she included the name of the woman who denounced her to the Nazis. Her poetry is striking for its verbal energy, sensuality, and the irony with which it explores the body, nature, desire, and thought. Brief, intense, and dazzling, her work transcends the tragedy of a life cut short to become a quest for new forms of expression and avenues of resistance.
Zuzanna Ginczanka (1917–1944) was one of the most prominent voices in Polish poetry between the wars. Born in Kyiv and raised in Równe (now Ukraine), she chose Polish as her literary language and began publishing at a young age. In 1936, she published her only book of poems, “Of Centaurs.” During the Nazi occupation, she went into hiding in Lviv and Kraków, where she was arrested by the Gestapo and murdered in 1944. Rediscovered in recent decades and translated into numerous languages, she is now an essential figure in 20th-century Polish poetry.
WHEN
June 25, at 7 p.m.
WHERE
Antonio Machado Bookstore (Plaza de las Salesas, 11, Madrid)
Free admission until capacity is reached