Julia Hartwig - Artur's influence on the PEN Club (91/100) скачать в хорошем качестве

Julia Hartwig - Artur's influence on the PEN Club (91/100)

To listen to more of Julia Hartwig’s stories, go to the playlist:    • Julia Hartwig (Poet)   Julia Hartwig (1921-2017) was a Polish poet, essayist, translator and author of children's books. She studied at universities in Warsaw, Lublin and Kraków. Czesław Miłosz called her 'the grande dame of Polish poetry'. [Listener: Andrzej Wolski; date recorded: 2010] TRANSCRIPT: So that's when most of our books came about, we were publishing them one after another, and then, sadly, Artur died. He'd been very ill but he was the chairman of the PEN Club right up to the last. And I have to say – this isn't my opinion – that the PEN Club never flourished as well as it did when Artur was in charge. The secret is simple, namely, he loved that PEN Club and he wanted it to be like that, without this that PEN Club wouldn't have existed because he knew how to inspire all kinds of people to work, and the PEN Club meetings that he led were wonderful. People would come almost as if to see a play because firstly, he was always very well prepared and we always had people from the government, the local councilor, someone... they would show off about coming to the PEN Club. This has finished entirely; almost nobody comes to the PEN Club these days apart from its members, when someone is really interested in the issue that's being discussed. There were often incidents there that needed... various people would turn up with different intentions and they would take the floor, so to keep them in check, to contain them a little, he... Artur was perfect at this. He had a very quick reflex and was always very droll so that the audience would be laughing while the poor person who'd asked the awkward question was cut down to size, slightly confused, which maybe wasn't very nice but it was helpful.