Literary festival in a coastal resort
First edition of the festival took place in 2012, and currently, Sopot by the Book is one of the most important literary festivals in Poland. The festival is a non-profit event and admission to all events is free.
The subject area of the festival
2012 edition was a meeting with the Polish reportage. In following years, the main topic was literature from a selected country or region. So far, the festival has explored the literature of Scandinavia, Russia, Czechia, Israel, Spanish-speaking countries, France, Great Britain, Italy, Canada, Germany, and regions of the Baltic Sea.
Amongst our guests were: Aleksandra Marinina, Walerij Paniuszkin, Radka Denemarková, Jiří Menzel, Etgar Keret, Olga Tokarczuk, David Grossman, Édouard Louis, Javier Cercas, Almudena Grandes, Alain Mabanckou, Sarah Hall, Zadie Smith, Esi Edugyan, Michael Crummey, Margaret Atwood, Bernardine Evaristo, Valeria Parrella, Donato Carrisi, Joyce Carol Oates, Elizabeth Strout, Lucy Caldwell, Sebastian Barry, Antje Rávik Strubel, Zsuzsa Bánk, and many more.
Thanks to meetings with foreign authors, the audience can encounter different attitudes towards the world, the countries that the authors come from, the cultural differences that stem from that, but also things that we have in common.
Elements of the programme
The indispensable elements of the festival are the debates, which tackle important social issues, sometimes ask difficult questions and are related to what is currently the most important in the public debates. In the programme, many meetings with Polish creators take place in a constant series, such as: Nogaś w Parku, (Nie)pamięć, Debiuty, (h)Historia, My, Wokół komiksu, Wokół fantastyki.
A constant presence in the festival are book fairs. However, there are many other opportunities to meet with literature in Sopot – during reading-alouds and radio-plays during Theatre by the Book, film screenings during Film by the Book or thanks to thoughtfully prepared offers of workshops within Sopot by the Book for Kids and Sopot by the Book for Young People.
Accolades
Sopot by the Book won the Kulturalny Sztorm Roku 2012 award, organised by Gazeta Wyborcza Trójmiasto daily, in 2016, the listeners of the “Radiowy Dom Kultury” on Polish Radio Three voted the festival as the ‘event of the year’. The seventh festival won the prize for ‘the best cultural event of 2018’ (Cultural Storm of the Year 2018). In 2019, Sopot by the Book was awarded the EFFE Label of Excellence, presented to exceptional and innovative cultural events in Europe. In 2020 Sopot by the Book won the plebiscite “Supermiasta” in Gazeta Wyborcza.
Team
The director of the festival: Joanna Cichocka-Gula (2012-2024)
Coordinator and the programmer of the festival: Marta Czarnecka
The team: Kamil Antoniuk, Patryk Danielewicz, Joanna Fryda, Mateusz Gierc, Monika Górka, Monika Górska, Michał Jeziorski, Agnieszka Kochanowska, Aleksandra Książkiewicz, Marceli Kuleszą, Barbara Lewinska, Weronika Morawiec, Małgorzata Muraszko, Joanna Nawrocka, Magdalena Pierzchała, Agnieszka Rek-Gornowicz, Antoni Siemiński, Katarzyna Sobczak, Marta Szadowiak
Since 2025, Marta Czarnecka is the director of the festival.
More information can be found here