Iryna Vikyrchak – asistant of Olga Tokarczuk

In the kitchen, there was a writing board and we made use of it – two signatures of thanks to this apartment and its owner from me and Olga Tokarczuk have been there since 2017.

In July 2018, I went to Nowa Ruda for the Mountains of Literature Festival invented and run by Olga – now I have also joined its program group and I'll support it with my own experience.

And can you tell us about the moment when Olga Tokarczuk asked you to become her assistant or, in her own words, secretary?

I learned about the Nobel Prize in Lviv, and I was incredibly happy. Many of my friends, including Ukrainian writers, immediately started writing about their encounters with Olga – Petro Yatsenko, last year’s winner of the Lviv City Award, wrote a whole article about Olga being his mentor at the time when he received a Gaude Mater Polonia scholarship.

Finally I got a text message from Olga. At first I couldn’t believe that she had gotten the Nobel Prize and then that she was thinking about me as a person who could help her. Two years later, I flew to Wroclaw without even knowing where I would sleep.

I arrived straight from the airport to the Wroclaw House of Literature and we – Olga, her husband Grzegorz and Irek Grin –started to work in preparation for the Nobel Week, because I turned out that receiving this prize requires many logistic arrangements. High requirements are set for the winner itself, about which I learned also from Michał Rusinek, Wisława Szymborska’s secretary.

I understand that communication between secretaries of Noble Prize winners works well.

Yes, we correspond many often on Messenger and I realised that Michał Rusinek’s experience 20 years ago is completely different from mine. Times have changed, and the speed of information exchange and tools for communication are completely different.

Michał Rusinek has recently asked me how I was getting on. I replied that I was writing an e-mail, and he answered: ‘Yes, I understand, I wrote many letters back then.’ I tried to imagine this, so I asked: ‘But in paper?’ And he replied in his characteristic ironic manner: ‘No, by chisel on clay tablets.’ I learned that he had used a computer to type these letters, and then he had printed and signed them and had gone to the post office to send them.

Michał Rusinek was selected by Szymborska when he cut off the cable of her ceaselessly ringing telephone.

Now you can’t turn off the smartphone with one cut. What a pity!

Especially because you must receive lots of calls and e-mails before the Noble Prize award ceremony in December.

I have recently sent around 60 e-mails in one day and put the letter correspondence in order, because I have just gotten a bag with letters delivered to the address of Olga and Grzegorz. These were congratulations from enchanted readers and from important institutions.

I guess you will keep some of them as souvenirs.

No, we’ll keep everything.

After all, this is an exceptional moment. How about your preparations for receiving the most important award in the world of literature?

This year things will be different, because Olga received the Noble Prize for the year 2018 and, apart from her, the winner for the year 2019, Peter Handke, will be present. First I was surprised by the fact that events are held for the entire week and something happens every day: a meeting with the Swedish royal family, concerts, banquets, meet-the-author sessions, signing of books, or a sightseeing tour of the Nobel Prize Museum.

This museum made an interesting request to us: they would like to Olga to prepare and bring along some souvenir or artefact that will remain there and refer to her personal history.

Have you already selected this item?

Not yet. Olga hit upon an idea that it should be a living thing that grows, which would be a reference to her Primeval and Other Times, but there is no final decision yet; I’m curious myself, because it will be a thing of symbolic importance to Polish literature.

It is going to be a busy week for you. Your main task is to help the Noble prize winner out?

Yes, although the most intense time is now, with a huge amount of correspondence, Olga’s previous obligations and the arrangement of the whole week in Stockholm; everything must be buttoned up till the end of November. Therefore, I work according to the motto “Plan your Work! Then, Work your Plan!”; when we have this week arranged step by step, we won’t have to think and make decisions on the spot, which consumes much energy.

I arrange Olga’s foreign trips in the same way – everything is described step by step: what, where, which address, contact, in order to make things easier for her. The most important thing is to prepare as best as possible – even more than is necessary so that you could take it easy at a later date and choose the proper option.

I work very much, but, seeing Olga and Grzegorz, I realise that they still have a lot to do and there are the decisions that they have to make on their own. And the awareness that their life will not be the same as before. Olga has been a famous writer for a long time, but the Nobel Prize will change everything.

Particularly on the international level.

And now there is the moment when the whole world is looking at Noble Prize winners, has great expectations and wants to hear something from them. Therefore, Olga will often travel abroad and will visit the most important places next year. We’ve also received many requests for meet-the-author sessions from small towns and communes.

It’s very precious that she is loved so much in Poland. Those who invite her know very well that the very fact of her arrival can do much for the local community.

But Olga Tokarczuk must be writing a Nobel speech; as we know, the whole world is waiting for it.

It is a huge text – 50,000 characters, and my main task is to help her with as many current things as possible so that she could focus on writing. Now, when I start to work in the morning and see a new e-mail from Olga, I panic, because it means that she’s not writing the speech at the moment. And, after all, it is also necessary to translate this text and to learn to read it in English.

Presumably, clothes will also be important. We remember a very nice dress from the Booker Prize award ceremony. Will that one be in a similar style?

I can’t give anything away – only the fact that the dress code specifies an obligatory dress to the floor during the award ceremony and the banquet in the city hall. Apart from the dress, it’s necessary to ensure proper clothes depending on the occasion for the whole week.

In addition, the winner’s task is to prepare a list of guests – 14 persons who will accompany her for the entire week. Apart from her family, Olga invited the publishers with whom she maintains professional contact and the translator of her books into Swedish Jan Henrik Swahn with his wife.

I remember that a Nobel Prize winner was moved by the fact that translators of her books want to gather in one place and celebrate the Nobel Prize.

There is such an idea. I know that some kind of surprise is under preparation. Olga appreciates her translators very much and is friends with many of them; she would like to take all of them to Stockholm, but she can’t.

On the table there is a postcard with an illustrated image of Olga and your contact details. Is it a visiting card?

An urgent solution to the problem of a visiting card for me as Olga Tokarczuk’s assistant and, incidentally, a small work of art. Olga uses these cards also for writing thanks and replies to letter of congratulations that she has received.

It is an exceptional time in your life –  a dream job, although presumably without fixed hours.

They exist – 24 hours a day (laughs). In Kraków, at a party in Wydawnictwo Literackie that publishes Olga’s books, I was asked if I was at work or at a party at that moment. I couldn’t give a clear answer because both things are true. Now this is my lifestyle.

I remember that already in Lviv I was bewildered by the fact that I would be writing with Olga, because this prize is so important, particularly for our part of Europe. At that time, I promised myself that I would become the best Noble Prize winner’s secretary ever. I feel huge responsibility, I got a great and beautiful portion of confidence and I have to do everything as best as possible.

And what was the reaction to your choice in your homeland – Ukraine?

I got congratulations and I was proud. But the quickest reaction was from Ukrainians living in Poland, which surprised me. Then, however, my friend from Kyiv living in Poland for a long time, to whom I gave an interview to Nasze Słowo – the most important Ukrainian newspaper in Poland, said that Olga’s invitation for me is an inspiration for other women who try to make a career and arrange their life in Poland.

I was also amused by comments about Olga’s Ukrainian roots. Once she mentioned her grandmother from Ukraine, but nothing more. I realise that she chose me not because of sentiment, but because I’m a cultural manager with experience in international work; I love literature, we know and like each other, and I had good recommendations from persons whom Olga trusts.

Olga says that there is some kind of karma or metaphysical relationship between us. I don’t know if this is so, but I think that we’ll cope with everything that awaits us.

Interview by Magdalena Talik

Photograph: Janusz Krzeszowski