2000-2021

Polish Cultural Institute New York
60 E 42nd St Ste 3000
New York, NY 10165

Looking back at the last 20+1 years of our work, we celebrate our 21st anniversary with you by sharing selected projects done in the past 21 years. Explore more current and recent Film & Performing Arts Projects.

Explore further highlights of the 20+1 years of our work:

→ Music
→ Humanities
→ Visual Arts & Design
→ Film & Performing Arts
→ Polish-Jewish Programming

Encounters with Polish Literature (2021+yearly)

Encounters with Polish Literature is a new video series in English for anyone interested in literature and the culture of books and reading. There are more points of contact between Polish writers and North American culture than many readers realize. Consider the long career of Czesław Miłosz at UC Berkeley and on the Bay Area poetry scene, the popularity of Wisława Szymborska in English translation, or the way that New Yorkers found comfort in Adam Zagajewski’s “Try to Praise the Mutilated World” after 9/11. Each month, host David A. Goldfarb presents a new topic in conversation with an expert on that author or book or movement in Polish literature. Translators will bring us into the delicate process of taking what may be a very personal and individual artistic expression in Polish and rendering it in a way that makes us feel as readers in English that we’ve made a human connection with the author. When possible, the show will bring in living authors to discuss their own work. Students thinking of taking a course in Polish literature or perhaps pursuing an advanced degree in the field, can meet leading scholars in Polish Studies at universities in North America and all around the world. If you are interested in writers like Miłosz, Szymborska, and Zagajewski, as well as prose writers, essayists, novelists, journalists, and more, then Encounters with Polish Literature can be your window into their world and their context.

Selected Episodes: Episode 1 – Being Poland, Episode 2 – Witkacy, Episode 3 – Gombrowicz, Episode 4 – Zagajewski, Episode 5 – Schulz, Episode 6 – Różewicz, Episode 7 – Nałkowska, Episode 8 – Lem, Episode 9 – Hłasko, Episode 10 – Reportage: Kapuściński, Szejnert, Grzebałkowska, Episode 11 – Tokarczuk.

Found in Translation (2008+yearly)

The Found in Translation Award was established in 2008. It is given every year to an author/authors of the best Polish literature translation into English that was published in a book form in the previous calendar year. The award is a diploma, a one-month residence in Kraków, Poland with a monthly grant of 2,000 PLN, a flight to and from Kraków and a financial award of 16,000 PLN. The Award is granted by The Polish Book Institute, Polish Cultural Institute London and Polish Cultural Institute New York.

Selected Awards include:
2008 – Bill Johnston for his translation of New Poems by Tadeusz Rózewicz
2009 – Antonia Lloyd-Jones for her translation of The Last Supper by Pawel Huelle
2010 – Danuta Borchardt for her translation of Pornografia by Witold Gombrowicz
2011 – Clare Cavanagh & Stanislaw Baranczak for their translation of Here by Wislawa Szymborska
2012 – Joanna Trzeciak for her translation of Sobbing Superpower by Tadeusz Rózewicz
2013 – Antonia Lloyd-Jones for the entire work of translations in 2012
2014 – Philip Boehm for his translation of Chasing the King of Hearts by Hanna Krall
2015 – Ursula Phillips for her translation of Choucas by Zofia Nalkowska
2016 – Bill Johnston for his translation of Twelve Stations by Tomasz Rózycki
2017 – Piotr Florczyk for his translation of Building the Barricade by Anna Swirszczynska
2018 – Jennifer Croft for her translation of Flights by Olga Tokarczuk
2019 – Madeline G. Levine for her translation of Collected Stories by Brunon Schulz
2020 – Anna Zaranko for her translation of The Memoir of an Anti-hero by Kornel Filipowicz
2021 – Ewa Małachowska-Pasek and Megan Thomas for their translation of The Career of Nicodemus Dyzma by Tadeusz Dołęga-Mostowicz

Selected Press:
The New York Times: Polish Translation Award
The First News: Won in translation! Bruno Schulz’s Collected Stories picks up top gong at prestigious literary translation awards

New Literature from Europe (yearly)

The New Literature from Europe Festival (NLE)—New York City’s top European literary event—brings together leading and emerging voices from 14 different countries with some of today’s foremost authors, editors and translators to celebrate cultural diversity and heritage while addressing the current challenges of globalization and migration. This year’s festival includes authors from many European countries.

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THE POLISH CULTURAL INSTITUTE NEW YORK was founded in 2000. It is a diplomatic mission of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Poland, operating in the area of public diplomacy. The PCI is one of 24 such institutes around the world. It is also an active member of the network of the European Union National Institutes for Culture (EUNIC) in its New York cluster.

Explore the highlights of the 20+1 years of our work:

→ Music
→ Humanities
→ Visual Arts & Design
→ Film & Performing Arts
→ Polish-Jewish Programming

The Institute’s mission is to share Polish heritage and contemporary art with American audiences, and to promote Poland’s contributions to the success of world culture. The Institute does so through initiating, supporting and promoting collaboration between Poland and the United States in the areas of visual art, design, film, theater, dance, literature, music, and in many other aspects of intellectual and social life. The Institute’s main task to ensure Polish participation in the programming of America’s most important cultural institutions as well as in large international initiatives.

The Polish Cultural Institute New York works with renowned cultural and academic centers and opinion leaders operating on the American market. Its main partners include such prestigious organizations as Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts, the Brooklyn Academy of Music, the Museum of Modern Art, PEN American Center, the Poetry Society of America, the National Gallery of Art, Yale University, Columbia University, Princeton University, the Harvard Film Archive, the CUNY Graduate Center, the Julliard School of Music, the New Museum, the Jewish Museum, La MaMa E.T.C. and many others. For more than fifteen years, it has presented Americans the achievements of outstanding Polish artists, including the filmmakers Andrzej Wajda and Jerzy Skolimowski; the writers Czeslaw Milosz, Adam Zagajewski and Wislawa Szymborska; the composers Krzysztof Penderecki, Witold Lutoslawski and Mikolaj Gorecki; theater artists Krystian Lupa, Jerzy Grotowski and Tadeusz Kantor; the visual artists Krzysztof Wodiczko, Katarzyna Kozyra, Alina Szapocznikow and many other important figures in the arts. The Institute initiates and actively participates in debates around the humanities in the broad sense, including those concerning history and the today’s most important social and political occurrences.