The greatest celebration of poetry in Poland and Central Europe! Each year the festival welcomes stars of world literature, and Kraków’s conference halls, auditoriums, independent bookshops and festival cafés turn into a space for poetic dialogue by hosting meetings with authors, lectures, concerts, workshops and discussions on hot social, cultural and political topics. The annual Wisława Szymborska Prize is awarded for best volume of poetry written in Polish and for poetry translation.
The festival is rooted in Cracovian Meetings of Poets of the East and West, held in 1997 and 2000 under the patronage of Nobel laureates Wisława Szymborska and Czesław Miłosz. The first edition of the new format of the festival, held five years after Miłosz’s passing, was held under the banner The Captive Mind, with subsequent events named after the poet’s other works. The festival is co-organised by the KBF and the City of Literature Foundation.
