The author of the paper examines two novels by Olga Tokarczuk – Final Stories and Anna In in the Tombs of the World in terms of self-psychotherapeutic functions of these texts in the process of overcoming the thanatic fear in the contemporary civilisation, characterised by the lack of effective rites of passage. It analyses the link between artistic devices and specific self-psychotherapeutic processes (desensitization, mythodrama) which they serve.

The sketch focuses on two novels by Olga Tokarczuk (Flights and The Books of Jacob), seeking to show different ways of using the travel motif. In Tokarczuk’s case, in fact, this is not only about moving in the geographical space, but also about exploring one’s own self. The questions posed by the author of House of Day, House of Night are universal; addressing fundamental aspects, they reveal the 21st century human condition. The writer often uses the motif of time, of the book or of travelling as such, showing literature as a specific language of communication that makes it possible to experience other people’s lives.

The essay discusses Olga Tokarczuk’s novel Books of Jacob in the context of the topos of journey, featuring in the author’s earlier texts in various ways. Journey becoming an escape represents earlier approaches to this topos, which already focused on the figure of the Other. This becomes accentuated in the Books of Jacob which conveys a vital thought for the contemporary world by constructing an all inclusive narrative, encompassing different religions, nationalities and ethnic groupings. This is an important message, especially for the societies of Poland and Ukraine, nations who are in search for a new identity, which could secure a safe ideological and geopolitical “home”.

The paper discusses the connection between Olga Tokarczuk’s novel Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead and the poetry of William Blake. Blake’s ideology was to show how mankind had come to the end because of its misdeeds, using the animal imagery, which links him to the topic presented by Tokarczuk, criticizing the cruelty of the authorities towards animals. She quoted Blake at the beginning of every chapter and created a character skilled in translating Blake. Since not much of Blake’s oeuvre has been translated in Macedonian, the translator of this novel had to deal with translating Blake too. Consequently, this text also focuses on the translation problems which she had to solve.

Archetypal figures and themes inspired by myths have been present in Olga Tokarczuk’s prose from the beginning. The paper contains an interpretation of her early novel, House of Day, House of Night, and analyses the central theme of the text, that of home, to show the role of narrative creation in identity development.

The paper contains a historical linguistic analysis of the noun biegun. It was prompted by the inflectional form of the plural nominative bieguni, the title of one of Olga Tokarczuk’s novels, a form unusual from the point of view of the contemporary Polish grammatical system. Tokarczuk used the form ending in -i, typical of masculine personal nouns, while the word biegun is commonly known to be used nowadays only in meanings that do not refer to people. This is why the paper attempts to gain insight into the semantics of the lexeme biegun in the history of the Polish language. The research carried out made it possible to determine that the examined unit used to function in many personal meanings in the past, meanings that would eventually become obsolete with the gradual lexicalization of the word biegun and in relation the appearance of its derivational synonyms in the Polish language. Tokarczuk thus revived some of the old meanings of the word biegun referring to people, and at the same time brought out new, metaphorical meanings embedded in it in potentia – thus delexicalizing the examined unit.

The paper discusses selected reactions to the Nobel Prize for Literature awarded to Olga Tokarczuk. The author focuses on the dispute about the legitimacy and justification of the Swedish Academy’s decision, highlighting the sceptical opinions, in some cases challenging the Academy’s members’ verdict. Referring to a book by James F. English on cultural prizes, the author recalls the role of public controversies as an essential tool of influencing the general public. He also compares the situation of two winners of the Nobel Prize in Literature (Olga Tokarczuk – for 2018, Peter Handke – for 2019), announced on the same day. Concluding, the author seeks to present the most important aspects of the dispute on the position and influence of Tokarczuk’s literary output.

The paper discusses the reception of Olga Tokarczuk’s works after the author received the Nobel Prize in Literature. It addresses the issue of politicisation of literature – the Nobel Prize winner’s novels are read through the angle of her left-wing views, with less importance attributed to the quality of the works as such. The paper answers the question as to what the Nobel Prize winner enchanted the Swedish Academy with, explains how Tokarczuk structures her novels and what makes them stand out (the psychological approach), and also discusses the author’s view on the role of literature in today’s world.

The author discusses the reception of Olga Tokarczuk’s works in Romania on the basis of translations, critical essays and radio and press interviews. Olga Tokarczuk is the best-known contemporary writer from Central Europe in Romania, thanks to numerous translations (almost all of her novels have been translated into Romanian, except The Books of Jacob, due to be published next year). An important role in the dissemination of her works has been played by the Polirom publishing house in Iași, which published a special series devoted to Tokarczuk. The quality of the translations of the Polish novelist’s texts is also high. Particular credit for this goes to Cristina Godun, a specialist in Polish Studies, who has managed to render the peculiarities of Tokarczuk’s narrative and style in Romanian. The paper also briefly discusses the difficulties encountered during the translation of Tokarczuk’s texts.

This paper presents the most important aspects of the reception of four novels by Olga Tokarczuk translated into Romanian, on the basis of reviews published in the Romanian literary press. The topics addressed most frequently by Romanian reviewers include the topos of journey, the contemporary human condition within the framework of everyday life, the axiological system of Olga Tokarczuk’s narrative world, the rich imagination, the fragmentary narrative, and the tendency to cross interdisciplinary boundaries. An amazing imagination, an exceptional literary talent, surprising combinations and multifaceted protagonists are only some of the elements of Olga Tokarczuk’s writing praised by Romanian reviewers. Tokarczuk’s novels are appreciated in Romania due to both the relevance of their themes, however uncomfortable they might be, and their great ability to translate such tough topics into literature.

The paper distinguishes and analyses the interpretative dominants in the Ukrainian reception of Olga Tokarczuk’s work over the last twenty years or so. This reception comprises numerous interviews, public conversations, translations and their presentations, literary criticism and literary studies dissertations, revealing the specificity of the point of view Poland’s neighbouring culture has on works which are now part of the world literature canon.

The text presents aspects of Olga Tokarczuk’s Bulgarian reception: translations, interviews, Bulgarian contacts, and an overview of her visit to Bulgaria in 2014. Special attention was paid to her creative friendship with Georgi Gospodinov. The Bulgarian initiatives related to Tokarczuk’s Nobel Year are presented, including the publication of the wonderful book The Lost Soul, the second edition of the novel Flights and a series of publications in the press.

The interview is dedicated to translations of Olga Tokarczuk’s texts into Korean. Korean translator Estera Czoj shares the inside story on her work on the Nobel Prize winner’s books, recalls fragments of novels that turned out to be real translation challenges, her first meeting with Olga Tokarczuk, and the writer’s visit to South Korea. The interview also addresses the aspect of the publishing strategies of Korean publishing houses, as well as the reception of Polish literature in South Korea.

Translations into Chinese by Professor Yi Lijun, a distinguished translator of Polish literature, include the most popular books by the most recent Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk: Primeval and Other Times and House of Day, House of Night. During the interview, the Professor shares, for the first time, her experiences and interesting stories that happened between the translator and the writer. This allows us to find out what brought the writer’s novels success among Chinese readers.

In the interview, Professor Lajos Pálfalvi, an outstanding translator of Polish literature into Hungarian and the head of the Department of Polish Studies at the Pázmány Péter Catholic University in Budapest, presents the story of his contacts with Olga Tokarczuk, starting from the 1990s when he met her personally as a promising novice. He gladly shares his vivid recollections and anecdotes related not only to the Polish Nobel Prize winner, but also to Hungarian and Polish literary life in the recent decades. He also talks about translation methodology and shares observations on the interpretation of Tokarczuk’s work.

The paper concerns the documentary project focused on the books Projekt: prawda [Project: Truth] and Nie ma [Not There] by Mariusz Szczygieł. The publications are discussed in terms of the characteristics of a transmedia story in which the original books develop through a narrative connection to a complex of complementary press, internet, stage and audio sources. The author provides an overview of the main components of Szczygieł’s project and an analysis of the interaction programmed between them. She subsequently refers this to the assumptions of what is referred to as transmedia genology in order to show the changes in the poetics of Polish literary reportage under the influence of media digitisation and convergence.

The paper devoted to an important theme in Adam Zagajewski’s work: the search for identity. Using the author’s biography as the background, the author of the paper refers to various works by the writer (including Two Cities, To Go to Lvov, and Should We Visit Sacred Places?) and draws attention to the fact that the author’s poetic declaration about homelessness is his identity status; consequently, the author of the paper focuses on the aspect of Lviv in Zagajewski’s work.

The paper discusses the novel Baśń amerykańska [An American Fairy Tale] by Alicja Iwańska, a Polish writer and sociologist who worked at American universities for many years. The paper discusses the picture of the academic community at a state university in the USA in the 1960s and the way in which it is presented, which makes it possible to classify the text as a campus novel, which is an extremely popular genre in English-language literature. The paper also points to the author’s demythologising view of the USA, challenging the American myth characteristic of the Polish awareness.

The paper describes two books containing accounts on participation in the International Gordon Bennett Cup ballooning race: “Kościuszko” nad Ameryką [“Kościuszko” above America] by Zbigniew Burzyński (1934) and Balonem “LOPP” nad Morze Białe [Above the White Sea in the “LOPP” balloon] by Stanisław Brenk (1937). The Polish achievements in the competition had a significant impact on the interest in ballooning in the interwar period. The texts discussed in the paper are visibly inspired by reportage and travel novels. The books had a propaganda nature: intended for the young reader, they highlighted the attractiveness of the army and the importance of the Polish army in the world.

The paper presents the most important and the most interesting Polish films of 2019. The text covers titles such as: Corpus Christi, Icarus. The Legend of Mietek Kosz, (Nie)znajomi, Mr Jones, Politics, Their Lucky Stars, Spoor, and Playing Hard. The author presents particular films from a point of view interesting for foreigners – people learning Polish as a foreign language and interested in Polish culture.

The essay presents an overview of the most important and most interesting prose and poetry publications that appeared on the Polish publishing market in 2019. The past year belonged mainly to artists perfectly rooted in the readers’ awareness. Particularly appreciated were especially works with underlying autobiographical themes, revisiting the often difficult past to try to sort out the “here and now”, socially engaged books, and books that remind us about shortcomings of the communication code. The authors of the recommended books included: Justyna Bargielska, Konrad Góra, Ewa Kuryluk, Mikołaj Łoziński, Krystyna Miłobędzka, Wojciech Nowicki, Jakub Pszoniak, Dominika Słowik, and Paweł Sołtys.