ELKOST International literary agency - 2022 – The Year of Józef Mackiewicz

The Seym of the Republic of Poland – recognizing the greatness of his achievements persistently supporting the ideas of: independence of Poland, freedom and friendly coexistence of the nations of Central and Eastern Europe and unwavering resistance against communism, and the universal values of his literary prose – establishes 2022 as the Year of Józef Mackiewicz. ” – written in the resolution of October 29, 2021.

We use this opportunity to remind all interested publishers that Józef Mackiewicz's vast literary estate is available for licensing, and that grants for translators and publishers of Polish literature abroad are available from The Polish Book Institute, see https://instytutksiazki.pl/en/grants

The Witness, a novel by Ilya Mitrofanov (1993)

Rights sold: Germany - Volk und Welt, Italy - Isbn Edizioni, Spain - Lumen, Poland - Claroscuro

"This novel is intensely passionate, and rich in fresh images and patterns..." (Silvia Bambino, The Wanity Fair)

"The Witness" is the first-person narrative of the life story of a simple human being, a barber Fedor Petrovich, whose life's most intense and dramatic period was the incorporation of his native Bessarabia into the Soviet Union in 1940, accompanied by coercion from the new command structure, which affected social relationships and caused enormous suffering due to famine brought on both by prolonged drought and by mistakes in official planning and preparation.

In the speck on the map called Kotlovina, the entire historical drama, starting with the so-called Soviet liberation from Romanian rule, was played out to its horrible end with very few survivors to live and tell about it. Read more

GREAT-GRANDAD GRISHA’S YARD, collected stories by Vladislav Otroshenko (2010)

Rights sold: China - Waiguo Wenyi (magazine rights), Lithuania – Metai (magazine rights), Hungary - Nagy Vilag (magazine rights), Slovakia - Svetovej Literatury (magazine rights), Serbia – Reč (magazine rights), Russia – Art House Media

Main theme of this collection of short stories by Vladislav Otroshenko is memories of the author about his childhood years spent in his native region near river Don, where Iranian, Greek, Roman, Turkic, Mongolian and Slavic traditions mixed freely. Otroshenko masterfully mixes reality with self-invented myths, using a number of unconventional techniques in order to introduce nonlinearity into his works.

2022 – The Year of Józef Mackiewicz

Featured titles

The Witness, a novel by Ilya Mitrofanov (1993)

GREAT-GRANDAD GRISHA’S YARD, collected stories by Vladislav Otroshenko (2010)