site.btaPolish Institute in Sofia Holds Public Reading of Eliza Orzeszkowa Novel

A public reading of Eliza Orzeszkowa's novel Nad Niemnem (Upon the Niemen) will be held at the Polish Institute in Sofia on September 28. The event will take place under the patronage of the Education and Science Ministry and Polish Ambassador Maciej Szymanski, the organizers said.

The novel will be read in Polish, Bulgarian, Esperanto and Braille. Excerpts will be read by diplomats, lecturers and students of Polish Language and Literature at Sofia University, students from the Polish School in the capital, Poles and Bulgarians resident in Sofia.

Prof Kalina Bahneva from the Faculty of Slavic Studies at the St Kliment Ohridski University of Sofia will moderate the event.

Eliza Orzeszkowa (1841-1910) was a Polish novelist and a leading writer of the Positivism movement founded by Auguste Comte. She was nominated for the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1905 and 1909 but did not win it. Her works have been translated into 20 languages. Her early novels, including Pan Graba (1872) and Marta (1873), were about the women's struggle for dignity.

Nad Niemnem, published in 1887, is about work and the longing for freedom, the Polish Institute said.