Discussion with: Igor Pomierancew – writer, Zbigniew Dmitroca – translator, Ludwika Włodek – moderator | Workshops of Culture, Grodzka 7 – patio POL, ENG, PJM

About the Book

Igor Pomerantsev is a familiar name to Polish readers, with his work frequently appearing in leading literary and socio-cultural journals and in book form. Notable editions include the anthology Radio Svoboda and the bilingual KGB and Other Poems (published by Workshops of Culture under the title KGB i Inne wiersze).

Pomerantsev brings his vibrant, effortless panache to My First Shelter (Mój pierwszy schron), a collection of dozens of lively short stories, memoirs, reports, and essays, published in Kyiv in 2023. Key themes explored in the collection encompass the author’s childhood and youth, the global pandemic, the processes of aging and death. Crucially, the book also confronts the devastating Russian aggression against Ukraine. Pomerantsev, a retired Radio Svoboda journalist now in Prague, feels an intense spiritual and emotional connection to these events rooted in his youth spent  in Bukovina.

About the authors

Igor Pomierancew (born 1948 in Saratov) is a poet, prose writer, essayist, radio journalist, and documentarian. He grew up and studied in Chernivtsi, where he has long been associated with the Meridian Czernowitz Festival. Since 1978, he emigrated westward, living successively in Germany, England, and the Czech Republic. For forty years, he has been connected with international radio broadcasters such as the BBC and Radio Svoboda. In his literary work, he explores the four classical elements: water (Late Harvest — a book about wine), earth, air (Can You Hear Me? — a radio diary), and fire (Homo Eroticus — love poetry). His poetry and prose have been translated into Ukrainian, English, Polish, Czech, German, and other languages. He is also the creator of documentary films, including those dedicated to the war in Ukraine, such as Shoemaker. Psychologist at War and Amputation.

Zbigniew Dmitroca (born 1962) is a poet, translator, satirist, prose writer, and playwright. He is the author of five poetry collections, a book of limericks titled Alphabet of Names, and more than seventy children’s books. He has translated or co-translated over twenty volumes of poetry, including works by Akhmatova, Brodsky, Khodasevich, Tsvetaeva, and the anthology Contemporary Russian Poetry Radio Svoboda. Dmitroca is the creator, author, and actor of the one-person suitcase theatre Teatrzyk jak się patrzy. He has collaborated with Radio Lublin and Radio Dwójka. His work has been published in literary magazines such as Akcent, Czas Literatury, Fraza, Kresy, Literatura, Literatura na Świecie, Odra, Przekrój, Twórczość, Wyspa, and Zeszyty Literackie. One of his children’s books was published in Turkey, and two others in Ukraine.