8 May 2018

This year’s Award will be given in two categories:

  1. for a book of poems originally written in the Polish language and published in 2017; the winner will receive a prize of zł100,000 and a statuette designed by Teren Prywatny; and
  2. for a book of poems by a foreign poet translated into Polish and published in 2016 or 2017: a statuette and zł50,000 will be presented to the poet and another zł50,000 to the translator of the winning book.

This year, the Award Committee – Andrei Khadanovich (Belarus), Bernhard Hartmann (Germany), William Martin (USA), Joanna Orska (Poland), Marian Stala (Poland),  Dorota Walczak-Delanois (Belgium), headed by Abel Murcia Soriano (Spain) – have nominated the following original Polish books of poetry:

Druga ręka, Wojciech Bonowicz (wydawnictwo a5),

Psalmy, Julia Fiedorczuk (Fundacja na Rzecz Kultury i Edukacji T. Karpowicza)

Kord, Natalia Malek (Wojewódzka Biblioteka Publiczna i Centrum Animacji Kultury and Staromiejski Dom Kultury),

Zimna książka, Marta Podgórnik (Biuro Literackie), and

Lucyfer zwycięża, Ilona Witkowska (wydawnictwo Ha!art)

As opposed to last year, this year the Award Committee have decided to grant the Award for a book of poetry translated into Polish as well. The winner is the Swedish poet Linn Hansén with her book Przejdź do historii (wydawnictwo Lokator, 2017) translated by Justyna Czechowska. The poet and the translator of the award-winning book will each receive a prize of zł50,000.

On 9 June 2018, during the Miłosz Festival, a Presentation Gala will be held at the ICE Congress Centre in Kraków, where the name of the Polish winner will be announced and the prizes will be presented to all the winners.

In previous years, the W. Szymborska Award was given to Krystyna Dąbrowska for the book Białe krzesła and Łukasz Jarosz for Pełna krew (2013), Julia Hartwig for Zapisane (2014), Roman Honet for świat był mój and Jacek Podsiadło for Przez sen (2015), Jakub Kornhauser for Drożdżownia and Uroš Zupan for Niespieszna żegluga (2016), and Marcin Sendecki for his book of poems entitled W (2017).