The Conrad Festival, which is one of Europe's most important literary events, will be held this year under the banner of Intensity. What could this mean? “Intensity is not in a hurry or rush. It is rather a focus, a compaction of capabilities,” says Michał Paweł Markowski, artistic director of the festival. And he adds: “it is discovery of other dimensions in life itself, other layers of meaning than those to which we have become accustomed. (…) It does not require forays to the pole or circling the Earth in a palm-leaf canoe. All it needs is a sheet of paper, a piece of the screen, and a couple of minutes, maybe hours of freedom.”

Assuming that the youngest read most intensely, the organisers have prepared a range of events for children. In this framework, the Czeczotka Palace will host typographical, literary arts and arts-botanical workshops. The stars of this cycle will be Aleksandra and Daniel Mizieliński – authors of the cult Maps, who will conduct classes on the basis of their album Under Earth, Under Water – and the Belgian creator Guido Van Genechten, who, based on images of the bunny Floppy, the most popular hero in his books, will show children how to draw emotions. Children can also take part in the author's meeting with Grzegorz Kasdepke for the launch of his book Wczoraj, dzisiaj, jutro.

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It is literature that helps us to live more intensely, more consciously; to notice details in our own world and the worlds of other people which without it would be unavailable to us. This links to the hope of the Conrad Festival – that thanks to the common experience of literature, we can go where we have never been. (ik)