The Polish Book Institute

A translation of Anna Kańtoch's novel Wiosna zaginionych (“Spring of the Missing”) has been published in Italy. The publication of Raffaella Belletti's translation was supported by the Book Institute as part of the ©POLAND Translation Programme.

The Italian edition of the book is entitled 'La primavera degli scomparsi' and was published by the Voland publishing house.

Spring of the Missing is the first volume of a trilogy about retired police officer Krystyna Lesinska, in which the protagonist tries to solve the case of the mysterious deaths and disappearances of students in the Tatra Mountains after fifty years. The next parts of the series are entitled Lato utraconych (“Summer of the Lost”) and Jesień zapomnianych (“Autumn of the Forgotten”).

Anna Kańtoch is a Polish writer of fantasy and crime fiction, author of such novels as Samotnia (“The Retreat”), Pokuta (“Penance”), Łaska (“Mercy”), and Tajemnica diabelskiego kręgu (“Mystery of the Devil's Circle”) series, which is aimed at a slightly different readership. The first part of her career was marked by fantasy; in the second half of the previous decade, she began writing popular crime novels and thrillers.

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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.