The Polish Book Institute

A translation of Fr Jozef Tischner's most famous book, Historia filozofii po góralsku (“A Goral History of Philosophy”), has been published in Italy. The publication of the Italian translation was supported by the Book Institute as part of the ©POLAND Translation Programme.

The Italian edition of the book is entitled 'La filosofia greca raccontata dai montanari polacchi' and was published by the Castelvecchi publishing house. The author of the translation is Tadeusz Sierotowicz.

A Goral History of Philosophy is a book in which Father Józef Tischner invites the reader to think and, in the process, tries to explain the origin of philosophy in the history of mankind. The role of the Greek philosophers is played in his storytelling by more or less well-known inhabitants of Podhale. Tischner's most popular book is also somewhat of a love letter to the Polish mountains and the Gorals - because of its subject matter, but also because it is written in the Goral dialect.

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The ©Poland Translation Programme is one of the Book Institute's flagship programmes. Its aim is to promote Polish literature around the world by providing financial support for the publication of Polish books in translation into foreign languages. Foreign publishers may use the funding grant to finance part of the work's publication costs, including, among other things, the translation of the work from Polish into another language, the purchase of copyright licences, and the printing of the book. In 2023 alone, we have subsidised 229 foreign editions of Polish books to be published by publishing houses from 46 countries, to which we have allocated almost PLN 5 million. In all editions of the programme, we have already subsidised a total of more than 3,000 translations of Polish books into foreign languages.