January Central European Book Club

January 13, 2025, 18.00

We invite you to the first meeting of the Central European Book Club at the ICC in 2026. This time, we will discuss the novel “Wyjarzmiona” by Renata Bożek — a moving, raw and deeply humanistic story about the fate of Rozalka Balawender.

One of the topics of the meeting will be the story of women's emancipation. We will consider how Central European history differs from Western European narratives and why the 19th century in Galicia was different. The book “Wyjarzmiona” will provide an opportunity to discuss social inequalities, language and what drives people to develop and change.

The conversation will be moderated by Paulina Małochleb, literary scholar and critic.

Admission is free — we cordially invite you to join us in reading and reflecting on the topics of social inequality, violence and women's aspirations in 19th-century Poland.

See you at the ICC — among people who believe that books connect Central Europe.

About the author:

Renata Bożek is a prose writer and journalist. She studied psychology at the Jagiellonian University and social sciences at the School of Social Sciences at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. She is the president of the Association of Rural Writers, co-founder of the online literary magazine “Pole”, and co-author of the Association of Rural Writers' prose series. Her first novel, “Madame Sinobroda” (2005), describes the beginnings of Warsaw hipster culture. She lives in Warsaw's Grochów district and in her home village of Karpiówka in the Lublin Province.