New residents at Villa Decius 04.07.2022
We've already welcomed two residents of the Krakow UNESCO City of Literature Residency Programme.
The Krakow UNESCO City of Literature Residency Program, coordinated by Krakow Festival Office together with Villa Decius Institute of Culture, involves two-month stays for emerging writers, playwrights, journalists, poets and translators. The residents stay at the historic site of Villa Decius, which is beautifully located in a park, on the outskirts of the city.
Marta Soldado from Spain and Roksolana Zharkova from Ukraine will work at Villa Decius on their new literary projects all summer long.
Marta Soldado from Spain and Roksolana Zharkova from Ukraine will work at Villa Decius on their new literary projects all summer long.
Marta Soldado
Marta Soldado graduated in History and Comparative Literature and works as a language, history and philosophy secondary school teacher in Barcelona. She has published the novel “The happiness of a roasted chicken” (L'Altra Editorial, 2018), the essay chapter “The Angel of Nostalgia Trapped Between East and West” in the collective book “Reinventing Eastern Europe: Imaginaries, Identities and Transformations” (2019) and the literary chronicle “El cap i la cua del drac” (Comanegra, 2022). Cities and their imaginaries, animals and the messing of geographic coordinates make up much of her literary and life journey.
During her residency, she would like to work on a novel where she wishes to explore two of her greatest passions: the multiple trips of two different people within their city and beyond, and the borders between human life and animal life – as other beings intermingle their biographies and stories with those of the two main characters. It is important for her to bring together two border debates: the geographical/political one around the East and the West and the one between human and non-human.
During her residency, she would like to work on a novel where she wishes to explore two of her greatest passions: the multiple trips of two different people within their city and beyond, and the borders between human life and animal life – as other beings intermingle their biographies and stories with those of the two main characters. It is important for her to bring together two border debates: the geographical/political one around the East and the West and the one between human and non-human.
Roksolana Zharkova
Roksolana Zharkova - Ukrainian writer, essayist, literary critic. A feminist, and a researcher of women's writing and features of women's art. A graduate of philology at the Lviv National University Ivan Franko. Participant, finalist and winner of many national and international literary and artistic competitions. Author of the poetry collections “Listen to the sea” (2015), “Hand-words” (2017), “All my birds” (2019), volumes of short stories and half-novels “He smells with you” (2017). The story “Zero Wholes, Zero Tens”, which won in the 5th Hryhora Tyutyunnyka All-Ukrainian Literary Competition (Kyiv, 2021), tells the story of a hero from occupied Lugansk.
In her work she tries to understand how women experience war, what their emotions and feelings are, and how creativity helps them survive trauma. She plans to develop this direction of her research and to compare the experiences of women's injuries of the twentieth century and the twenty-first century, to write journalistic analytical materials and literary texts in this discourse. A special place in her search is occupied by the theme of childhood, in particular women's traumatized childhood, presented in the autobiographical and autodocuary works of women writers.
More about The Krakow UNESCO City of Literature Residency Program:
https://willadecjusza.pl/en/krakow-unesco-city-of-literature-residency-program
In her work she tries to understand how women experience war, what their emotions and feelings are, and how creativity helps them survive trauma. She plans to develop this direction of her research and to compare the experiences of women's injuries of the twentieth century and the twenty-first century, to write journalistic analytical materials and literary texts in this discourse. A special place in her search is occupied by the theme of childhood, in particular women's traumatized childhood, presented in the autobiographical and autodocuary works of women writers.
More about The Krakow UNESCO City of Literature Residency Program:
https://willadecjusza.pl/en/krakow-unesco-city-of-literature-residency-program