About the event

Book launch: Hanna Jankuta, “Konstytucja” (translated from Belarusian by Bohdan Zadura). The event will feature: Hanna Jankuta – author, Bohdan Zadura – translator, Jan Burnatowski – moderator.

About the book “Konstytucja”

A collection of poems written in the margins of a country’s fundamental law, this book reflects on what law is, what the world does to humans and what humans do to the world, as well as an attempt to juxtapose political dictatorship with the dictatorship of the Anthropocene. It is a poetic record of the history of a person growing up in an authoritarian society and now experiencing their own geological time in exile – but also a “Constitution of everything”, from the Big Bang to the moment of “here and now”, telling the story of various creatures that once inhabited and still inhabit the planet. In these poems, the Constitution itself has its own narrative; in times of social upheaval, it becomes a “chronicle of catastrophes”.

About the participants

Hanna Jankuta – Belarusian writer, translator, and literary scholar. She is the author of the novel “Czas chwastów” (2023), the poetry collections “Geologia/Konstytucja” (2022) and “Niezawodny sposób na duchy” (2025), books for children, and numerous articles and essays on literature and feminism. She translates from English and Polish. She translated into Belarusian Jane Austen’s “Duma i uprzedzenie”, Kazuo Ishiguro’s “Nie opuszczaj mnie”, and Sally Rooney’s “Normalni ludzie”. She has translated, among others, poetry by Bolesław Leśmian, Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, Adam Mickiewicz, Czesław Miłosz, and Wisława Szymborska. Recipient of the Maksim Bahdanowicz Debut Prize (2013), the Belarusian Jerzy Giedroyc Prize (2nd place, 2024), and the Ales Adamovich Prize (2024). Scholarship holder of the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage Gaude Polonia programme in 2012 and 2021. Her works have been translated into Polish, German, Danish, Italian, Latvian, English, Spanish, Czech, Slovak, Lithuanian, Hungarian, and other languages. She currently lives in exile.

Bohdan Zadura (born in 1945 in Puławy) – poet, prose writer, literary critic, and translator. He graduated in philosophy from the University of Warsaw. He made his debut in 1962 in the monthly magazine “Kamena”. Between 1970 and 1977, he worked at a museum in Kazimierz Dolny; from 1977 to 1987, he was literary director of the Lublin Theatre of Vision and Movement; from 1980 to 2004, he was editor of the literary quarterly “Akcent”; from 1983 to 2004, editor of the literary monthly “Twórczość”, and from 2004 to 2020, its editor-in-chief. Co-founder and vice-president of the board of the Eastern Cultural Foundation “Akcent”. He translated from English, Russian, Hungarian, and Ukrainian, including works by Yurii Andrukhovych, Andriy Bondar, Andriy Lyubka, and Vasyl Slapchuk. Recipient of numerous literary awards, including the Stanisław Piętak Prize (1994), the Józef Czechowicz Prize (2010), the Silesius Wrocław Poetry Award (2011), the Hryhorii Skovoroda International Literary Prize (2014), the C.K. Norwid Prize (2015), the Artistic Award of the City of Lublin (2018), and the Drahomán Prize (2022). Named Ambassador of the East (2023). In 2025, he was a finalist for the Ossolineum Prize for the best poetic translation of “Autoportret w postaci pestki awokado” by Julia Cimafiejewa.

Jan Burnatowski (born in 1984 in Sanok). He received his PhD in humanities based on his dissertation “Proza Mariana Pankowskiego jako projekt literatury innowacyjnej” (supervisor: Krzysztof Latawiec, PhD habil.). He is academically affiliated with the Pedagogical University of Krakow.

Details

When: July 3, Friday, 17:30-18:30
Where: Workshops of Culture, Grodzka 7 – patio
Admission free