The Estate of Seamus Heaney, alongside the Krakow Festival Office (KBF) and the Embassy of Ireland in Poland, have launched a new Residency programme at the former apartment of Polish poet and writer Czesław Miłosz in Krakow.
The Krakow apartment, where Miłosz spent the last decade of his life, is where the two Nobel laureates cemented their friendship. Having been impacted by his work, Heaney paid tribute to Miłosz after his death in 2004:
“I know Milosz's poems only in translation, but they come through so convincingly in the 'target language' you forget that their first life is in Polish. Reading him in English, you are in thrall to a unique voice, a poetry cargoed with a density of experience that has been lived through and radiated by an understanding that has rendered it symbolic. It's not just that one trusts the ear and the accuracy of those poets who have done the translating, although their contributions in this regard have been indispensable. It's more that one can hardly not intuit the sheer weight of human presence, prose content and musical transmission that must subsist in the original away beyond our linguistic reach.”
The Heaney-Miłosz Residency, which will take place for a period of 4-6 weeks in autumn 2023, aims to support early to mid-career writers who are focussed on creative writing, including poetry in particular. Applicants must be resident in Ireland. All applications will be assessed by an Evaluation Board comprised of three Irish members and three Polish members, each representing literary and cultural organisations in Ireland and Poland respectively. It is planned that the Residency will take place biennially.
Throughout the Residency, the selected candidate will be supported by the Krakow Festival Office, the Embassy of Ireland in Warsaw and the Estate of Seamus Heaney. A stipend of €250 weekly will be provided to the Residency writer and flights and transfer costs will also be covered. It is hoped that the opportunity will allow the selected candidate the space to further develop their work.
Literature Ireland is pleased to support this Residency and the literary links between Ireland and Poland that it represents.
The deadline for applications is 17:00 Irish time on Friday 30 September 2022.
Posted to on 23 Sep 2022.