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Polish writer Tokarczuk launches foundation to support culture

07.10.2020 13:15
Polish Nobel Prize-winning writer Olga Tokarczuk has launched a foundation to support culture at home and abroad.
Literature Nobel Prize Laureate Olga Tokarczuk of Poland smiles during the opening of the 20th Literature Festival in Berlin, Germany, 09 September 2020. The Literature Festival is running from 09 to 19 September 2020.
Literature Nobel Prize Laureate Olga Tokarczuk of Poland smiles during the opening of the 20th Literature Festival in Berlin, Germany, 09 September 2020. The Literature Festival is running from 09 to 19 September 2020.Photo: EPA/FILIP SINGER

The new Olga Tokarczuk Foundation, which is based in the southwestern Polish city of Wrocław, aims to “promote human rights, democracy, civil society, as well as supporting activities for the environment and animal rights, fighting discrimination, supporting women's rights and promoting Poland,” state news agency PAP reported.

Tokarczuk, who was last October named the winner of the 2018 Nobel literature prize, donated PLN 350,000 in cash to the foundation, from the money she won along with her Nobel Prize.

According to PAP, the foundation’s activities will be primarily focused on literature.

"On the other hand, there are other areas of life that are very important to me […] Those are women, their talents, their lives, but also their exclusion from various spheres. Animal rights are another such topic,” Tokarczuk said at a press conference in Wrocław last week.

During the conference, Tokarczuk also announced that her husband, Grzegorz Zygadło, would be the president of the foundation.

The foundation's board – apart from Tokarczuk – includes acclaimed Polish film director Agnieszka Holland.

According to PAP, the new foundation’s manifesto says: "We want to create a space for international dialogue about the future; a place to connect those areas and energies of life that appear to be independent and distant from each other.”

“We will support such cultural, artistic, scientific and civic initiatives that display different points of view, and which are looking for new formulas for social life and creating pioneering solutions,” the manifesto adds.

(jh/pk)

Source: PAP