“This is a fact that ranks the Polish literature in a dignified spot in the Albanian literary market along the British, French and Italian literature,” said Polish Ambassador Bachura
TIRANA – The Polish Embassy organized the promotion of the periodical Almanac 3 at the premises of Friend’s Book House on January 23 this year. The third edition of the Almanac includes publications of Polish literature of the period 2017-2019 translated in Albanian.
The Polish Ambassador to Tirana, Karol Bachura said in his remarks while promoting Almanac 3 that the third edition of this periodical is the most comprehensive one of the series which has started to be launched since 2013. “The new titles help enrich the third edition of the Almanac since for the first time we see in Albanian the works by Janusz Korczak, Tadeusz Rozeviwicz and Olga Tokarczuk. The latter won the two most important literature prizes in the world in the last two years, the International Man Booker Prize and the Nobel Prize for Literature,” he said, adding that besides her the Almanac contains writings and excerpts from the works of two previous Polish Nobel laureates, Czeslaw Milosz and Wislawa Szymborska. Almanac 3 is distinguished for its abundant influx of works by the prominent authors, Janusz Korczak and Tadeusz Rozewicz for the first time in Albanian. Mr. Korczak is introduced with two nice children’s books “The King of the Children of the World” and “The Bankruptcy of Little Jack”, while Mr. Rozewicz with the poetic volume “Selected Poems”.
Ambassador Bachura noted that Almanac 3 also contains two translations dedicated to the figure of the Albanian national hero, Gjergj Kastrioti- Skanderbeg by Polish authors of the past centuries. He pointed out that out of a total of over 50 publications in Albanian since the 20th century nearly half of them have been published in the course of the three editions of Almanac (2013-2019). “This is a fact that ranks the Polish literature in a dignified spot in the Albanian literary market along the British, French and Italian literatures.” According to him, this is evidence of the attention that the Polish Embassy pays to bilateral cultural relations, which, it should be said, are not limited only to literary publications.
The diplomat and editor of Albanian Daily News, Genc Mlloja in his book “Albanian-Polish Bond, a View from Tirana” shares with readers his memoires, impressions and reflections on his sojourns in Poland as well as interviews with many high state personalities and representatives of the Polish civil society over three decades, said Mr. Bachura. In the meantime, he added that the writer and researcher, Spiro Mehilli published the book entitled “Poland, a Victim of World War Two”, which is helpful for the readers to get acquainted with the neutral stance for the interpretation of the historical facts related to that war.
Ambassador Bachura was thankful for the work of translators of Polish literature Leonard Zissi, Arqile Teta, Pandeli Cina, Astrit Beqiraj, Edlira Lloha, Ben Andoni etc. “Over decades, they have helped bring to light prominent values of the Polish literature and culture, bringing our two people even closer,” he said, promising that the Embassy will make possible the publication of the 4th edition of the Almanac after some time.
The speech of Ambassador Bachura was followed by remarks of the participants in the cocktail event which was attended by writers, journalists, representatives of cultural institutions, and friends of the Embassy.
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