In the footsteps of Horst Bienek in Gliwice. <Kwadrat dzieciństwa>Biographical walk”. The Gliwice Years of Horst Bienek”

On Saturday, October 31 at 11.00 we invite you to another biographical and historical walk in the footsteps of the writer who was born in the pre-war Gleiwitz and left an extremely suggestive image of this place in his work.

Horst Bienek is an extraordinary character — writer, poet, film director, literary critic — but also a witness of the 20th century transformations, traces of which can be found both in his biography and in his works. His “Gliwice tetralogy” is today not only a literary monument of the city of childhood, but also a valuable record of the world that no longer exists.

During the walk we will visit the space that Bienek himself described as the “Square of Childhood” — a small fragment of Gliwice marked by four important points for him: the family house at today's Horsta Bienka street, the forest — the space of freedom, the school and the church of Christ the King. In this intimate urban topography, his sensitivity matured and his identity was formed — personal and artistic. During the meeting, we will introduce you in an accessible way the key facts of Bienek's life and the historical context of his youth Gliwice — a city that underwent dynamic cultural, social and political transformations in the 20th century.

Participants of the meetings will also receive specially prepared folders on the route, which are an incentive to independently search for traces of Horst Bienek in Gliwice.