Meet the author: Agnieszka Szpila
She is the new enfant terrible of Polish literature. Agnieszka Szpila will travel from Warsaw to tell us about Heksy, the madcap novel that made her name and earned her the compliments of Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk. Heksy is an epic and cheerfully radical ecofeminist manifesto, a bestseller in Poland that is currently being translated in many countries.
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When Anna Szajbel, president of the state oil company (a dream job, if it weren't for those damned environmentalists, those soya farmers, who are always after her), is caught making love to a tree, she is summarily fired and publicly humiliated. However, these events lead her to make a discovery that sends her back in time to a seventeenth-century duchy and into a community of women, a special kind of beguine who have renounced the patriarchal and religious order and live in the forest, where they worship the Old Maid and make love to Mother Earth.
the vital impulse
Heksy is currently being translated in many countries, and rightly so: it is a madcap, elusive and striking novel through which an extraordinary energy flows from start to finish – impulsive, vital, powerful. Wherever she goes, Agnieszka Szpila manages to build a strong bond with her audience. At the Passa Porta Festival she will be interviewed by July Robert and translated from Polish by Cécile Bocianowski.
About de Heksy :
‘The book you are holding in your hands is a torpedo. Its energy, humour and defiance will jolt your mind and change the way you think forever.’
‘A totally unclassifiable text that advocates a sexuality “inspired by the life of plants and not that of animals”. Radical, disturbing, carried by raw language, a wonderful call to revolt.’
about the author
Agnieszka Szpila was born in Poland in 1977. The holder of a degree in cultural studies, she is a writer, screenwriter and activist. She made her literary debut in 2015 with the story ‘Łebki od Szpilki’. Her first novel, Bardo, was published in 2018 and soon became a bestseller. Her second novel, Heksy, whose rights have been sold in eight languages, was a finalist for the prestigious Nike Prize. It was adapted for the stage and became a huge hit with audiences and the press in Poland.
À propos de la modératrice
Aurore Engelen is a journalist specializing in cinema and literature. Since 2016, she has been editor-in-chief of Cinevox. She also works for les Magritte du cinéma. In 2020, she created the podcast “Les Rituels”, a series of intimate conversations with authors of Belgian cinema about the place literature has in their daily lives. She also created the podcasts “Hors cadre” for l'Académie André Delvaux and “Alinéas” for Bela. In September 2021, she joins the editorial staff of Focus Vif as a film and literature critic.
don’t forget about summer hour. on sunday 30th of march, hours will change from 2:00 a.m. to 3:00 a.m.
Organisation: Passa Porta, Polish Intitute Brussels
