We are pleased to inform that yet another publication summing up the “SAGA ‒ creativity workshops” project, initiated and carried out by the Villa Decius Association since 2012, is already available. The publication is a collection of texts written by people over 55 who decided to use the potential of their free time to set out on a literary adventure.
Our editorial interference in the presented texts is minor and is of an ordering nature only. We value the selected works not for their stylistic correctness and syntactic perfection, but above all for the frankness and depth of the message.
The presented collection is a selection of texts in which the authors’ distance from the surrounding reality, themselves, and the experience of old age is the most valuable element. The authors don’t lack a sense of humour, self-criticism, and literary talent ‒ albeit not confirmed by any statuettes or critics’ favour.
The publication consists of two parts. The first one includes texts awarded and distinguished in the “SAGA ‒ My Poland” literary competition.
The works submitted make up the image of “Poland over 55” ‒ an image without political exaltation, the white-and-red rhetoric, and martyrological contexts. In the authors’ perspective, Poland is a country in which above all “the politics of everyday life” takes place and it engages people more than the stream of information flowing out of the TV and radio every day.
The second part of the publication includes literary sundries ‒ short stories, excerpts from journals and large-scale novels, but also plays on literary forms, limericks, and poems. The texts’ authors share moving stories of the less and less attainable past and their insights on the here and now with us, and try to build a more or a less probable image of the future. Sometimes, it is precisely constructed literary fiction that engrosses, amuses, and moves the reader. Other times, it is honest confessions devoid of rhetorical tricks and stylistic fortresses.
Pobierz publikację „SAGA – moja Polska”
We would like to wholeheartedly thank Katarzyna Kubisiowska and Michał Olszewski for their substantive support of the project, unlimited imagination, the ability to motivate and provoke discussion on various, often inconvenient topics, as well as their extraordinary involvement in conducting the workshops.
We would also like to thank Urszula Ciesielska-Chmielewska ‒ participant of the SAGA, whose help was invaluable while working on editing the publication, for her editorial collaboration.
We warmly congratulate all the SAGA participants on completing the courses, their unwavering motivation and enthusiasm, on which we try to draw while planning our next project activities.
For more texts written by the “SAGA ‒ creativity workshops” project participants, please visit www.saga.villa.org.pl. Happy reading!