The next meeting of the Klub Książki Środkowoeuropejskiej will take place on Monday 23 November 2026 at 6.00 pm in the small hall of the Pałac Potockich, Rynek Główny 20, Kraków. Due to renovation work at the headquarters of the Międzynarodowe Centrum Kultury w Krakowie, the meeting is being held in the neighbouring Pałac Potockich.
The meeting will focus on the novel Wszystko na darmo by Walter Kempowski (trans. Małgorzata Gralińska, ArtRage, Warsaw 2023), one of the most important German prose writers of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries. Participants will discuss the fates of people caught up in the mechanisms of so-called grand history.
The action of the novel, the last one published by the author, is set in East Prussia. Its central character is Katharina von Globig, left alone while her husband fights at the front. She waits, reads, receives a succession of unexpected visitors and recalls past holidays on the Baltic coast. The political situation changes rapidly: the ‘red deluge’ approaches and the Germans flee the occupied territories, while figures of prisoners in striped uniforms appear on the road. The cool, ironic narration portrays a world in which former victors become the vanquished, and persecutors become fugitives.
The meeting will be led by Dr Paulina Małochleb.
The event is organised by the Międzynarodowe Centrum Kultury w Krakowie, the Pałac Potockich and the Krakowskie Biuro Festiwalowe.