Monday, September 26, 2016

First Reading from "The Rainy Bread" at Generations Remember 2016 Conference in Warsaw


The first official reading from The Rainy Bread. Poems from Exile book of poetry by Maja Trochimczyk, published in August 2016, took place on September 19, 2016, in Warsaw, at the Uniwersytet Warszawski's Faculty of Sociology, during an event co-sponsored by the History Meeting House (Dom Spotkan z Historia) and organized by the Kresy Siberia Foundation, an international non-profit headquartered in Australia.


The reading was the first presentation at the Generations Remember 2016 International Conference of descendants and survivors of Soviet deportations of Poles to Siberia, Kazachstan, etc.during and before WWII.  According to scholar and artist Adrian Palka (Coventry University), it was exceptionally well received  and set the tone for the whole day,  being an instance of what Palka called "post-memory" - the second generation of children of survivors internalizing and describing their parents' experiences, as if these experiences were their own.  The reading was bilingual, in Polish and English, but for now, only the English version is available in print.


The book is available from lulu.com, in paperback and eBook formats.  A bilingual English-Polish version with translations and additional poems is in preparation.

The author, Maja Trochimczyk was selected for a radio interview by WNET Radio, representing California, along with architect Barbara Gdowski of Perth, representing Australia, and Stefan Szewczuk, President of Poles in South America organization.

At the Radio WNET Studio, with Stefan Szewczuk, and Barbara Gdowski

With Maciej Czarkowski, who organized the interview for WNET Radio.

The conference itself was well-documented in the media, with news reports, and interviews, including a report by Polish TV Polonia:  http://polonia24.tvp.pl/27038817/sybiracy. Other links to follow.

For a program, speakers and other information about the conference, visit Kresy-Siberia.org website.