With great regret Olga Tokarczuk had to cancel her performances at CULTURESCAPES Poland. The many obligations she now has with winning the Nobel Prize make it impossible for her to follow through with her trip to Switzerland this November. Her performances are expected to be postponed to next year. The exact dates will be announced as soon as possible.
We also regret the cancellation very much, but are also very pleased about this high award going to this great author.
For «Flights» (Kampa 2019) Olga Tokarczuk was awarded the Man Booker international prize in 2018, her last novel «The Books of Jacob» (also Kampa 2019) received the most prestigious Polish book prize Nike in 2015. The latter caused outrage in Poland after Tokarczuk, in her post-award interview, said: «We have come up with this history of Poland as an open, tolerant country, as a country uncontaminated by any issues with its minorities. Yet we committed horrendous acts as colonisers, as a national majority that suppressed the minority, as slave-owners and as the murderers of Jews.» The book tells the story of Jakub Frank, a Jewish-born religious leader, heretic and failed Messiah, who led the forcible conversion of fellow Jews to Catholicism in the 18th century.
