Four months after the masterpiece “Drive your plow over the bones of the dead”, the Nobel Prize-winning writer Olga Tokarchuk is coming to Greece for the first time in a public discussion about literature, society and the art of tenderness that will will take place on the Main Stage of the Onassis Foundation Roof on February 9 (at 8:30 p.m.).

The discussion is moderated by the journalist and editor of publications Grigoris Bekos.

Author of novels such as The Primordial and Other Times, Planets and The Books of Jacob, Olga Tokarchuk (b. 1962) was informed that she had been awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature while traveling by road, in traffic, something perfectly suited to her case. Because, with her “extremely witty and intelligent” work, the Polish author “focuses on migration and the experience of cultural transition”. Tokarchuk was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature by the Swedish Academy “for her narrative imagination which with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a way of life”.

At the start of this season, in October 2023, Stegi audiences had the opportunity to see this transgression before their very eyes thanks to Simon McBurney and the Complicité team’s highly inspired adaptation and direction of Tokarchuk’s novel, “Driving your plow over the bones of the dead’, a performance-seminar on how literature can be dramatically transfigured.

With a completely personal, distinct and immediately recognizable style, Tokarchuk combines reality and fiction in her writing, uses folk traditions and history, while reflecting her adherence to the theories of Carl Jung, while she has managed to be considered the leading prose writer of her of today’s Poland and one of Europe’s most prominent worldwide creators.

Through her immovable, transformative, enchanting stories that transcend time and space, Tokarchuk pushes us to contemplate the dark cracks, but also the bright possibilities of our time. She is sensitized and militant on political, social, environmental and ecological issues, having often faced extreme nationalists who have accused her of, among other things, “treason”. And this is because with her writings and opinions she disturbs many when she questions aspects of the national past and contemporary dominant perceptions in her homeland, in Europe, in the world.

Her books (“The Primeval and other times”, “Planets”, “Drive your plow over the bones of the dead”, “Jacob’s books”) are published in Greek by Kastaniotis Publications, all translated from the Polish language , by Alexandra D. Ioannidou and Anastasia Hatzigiannidis.

The discussion will take place in Polish, with simultaneous interpretation in Greek and Greek sign language. On the day of the event, Olga Tokarchuk’s books, “The Primordial and other times”, “Planets”, “Drive your plow over the bones of the dead” and “The books of Jacob” will be sold in the foyer of the Stegis ground floor. At the end of the event, the author will sign a limited number of copies.