Author: Aleksandra Majdzińska.
On 25 March at 7.30 p.m., the Instituto Polaco de Cultura presents in the Librería Antonio Machado in Madrid (Plaza de las Salesas, 11) a literary-musical evening around the book Shalom Bonjour Odesa, by the Polish writer Aleksandra Majdzińska, published a few months ago in Spanish (Armaenia Editorial, 2025). Free admission until full capacity.
The meeting proposes an artistic and sensory journey through the multicultural history of Odessa, a space for encounters, migrations and dialogue between traditions.
The author will talk with the audience along with the book’s translator, Amelia Serraller, and editor Ricardo López Fernández. In addition, the public will be able to enjoy a performance reading of fragments of the work, accompanied by compositions by the Polish guitarist Raphael Rogiński, inspired by the musical traditions of the Black Sea region. A special occasion to discover a work that explores memory, identity and cultural diversity through word and sound.
The book portrays a city of dreams, steppe dust and sea breezes. A city of commerce and art. Ukrainian, Russian, Jewish, French, Italian… Shalom Bonjour Odesa (Armaenia, 2025) is a captivating book about pre-war Odessa.
Searching for the trail of her late father, the narrator guides the reader through the streets and history of this city. We accompanied her on her journey, from gold-filled beaches and churches to the catacombs that were once the kingdom of the underworld. Quote jokes, local newspaper advertisements and conversations with residents of Odessa. He makes his way through markets, offices, cemeteries and ecclesiastical archives. The result is a portrait of Odessa before history again swept through the city and transformed its appearance.
Aleksandra Majdzińska is a writer, screenwriter, translator and teacher of Polish language and culture in diaspora communities in the East. It comes from the small village of Stara Dąbrowa. For the script of the film Mleczny brat [Milk Brother], directed by Vahram Mkhitaryan, she received an award at the Yerevan International Film Festival and was nominated for the Polish Independent Film Jan Machulski Award. Debuted in 2019 with the volume Morkut and other stories. In 2023 he received the Marek Nowakowski Literary Prize for the book Shalom bonjour Odessa.
