House of Literature Wroclaw in January
In 2016, Wroclaw is going to take over both as the European Capital of Culture and the World Book Capital. "We would like to make a lasting contribution to the culture of the city as part of the ECC 2016 celebrations", points out Jarosław Broda, Head of the Culture Department at the Wroclaw City Office. Hence the idea to establish a new cultural institution committed to literature, readers and promoting readership. "Our initial proposal suggests that the institution be called the House of Literature Wroclaw", explains Jarosław Broda. The House of Literature is going to combine two separate structures: the Warstwy publishing house and the Biuro Wrocławskich Promocji Dobrych Książek (Wroclaw Office for the Promotion of Good Books). As long as the City Council accepts the proposal, the new institution is expected to launch the activity on 1 January 2016. The draft of the resolution to set up the House of Literature Wroclaw will be submitted to the councillors in two weeks' time at the upcoming session.
Karpowicz's Villa for translators
The new institution will be granted wider prerogatives to promote publishing activity and to continue the Dobre Strony book fair and the Wroclawskie Targi Dobrych Książek (Wroclaw Good Books Fair). There are also plans for the House of Literature to join the ICORN programme, which is devoted to writers persecuted in their countries of origin. The City Council gave consent for the institution to join the network at their previous session. The House of Literature Wroclaw is also likely to operate the centre which is going to be established at Tymoteusz Karpowicz's villa in Krzyki, which is now a municipal property. "We are working on how to modernise and convert the villa to make it suitable as a place of residence for literary translators who work from Polish to foreign languages", says Jarosław Broda. Translators would be coming to Wroclaw to work as part of their grants or scholarships. There are plans to arrange 7 rooms for translators, and the sitting room will serve as a common area to sit and discuss at leisure. It is still to be decided on how to run the centre, and the contribution from public institutions may be required. "We are inspired by a centre in Straelen, Germany, which is run jointly by the town, land and state, and has been performing well for years. Our German neighbours can now boast of a large library of translations from German into a number of languages produced at the centre", says Head of the Culture Department at the Wroclaw City Council.
Subsidies to publishers
The city would also like to support publishers and to concentrate the funds later to be distributed among a number of publishing houses. 1000 different publications have been subsidised over the last ten years. "We take pride in this number, but we also would like to rearrange our activity and make everything more transparent. That's why we are planning to set up the Wroclaw Publishing Programme, which is going to be located at Impart", explains Jarosław Broda. The programme is going to follow the example of the film fund operated by Odra Film. "We would like to offer the same rules to everybody and to distribute the funds as part of competitions", says Head of the Culture Department at the Wroclaw City Office. Publishers would be submitting projects to be assessed by the experts. The details concerning the Wroclaw Publishing Programme have been included in the draft of the resolution which is going to be submitted to the City Council. If the Council passes the resolution, the programme will start in January.
