ZAMEK READS: “Substantija” — author's meeting with Michał Witkowski

TypeLiterature

LocationSala Wielka

Hour

18

Datum 21.10.2026

Price

7 PLN

LITERARY MEETING

Premiere of the new

Michał Witkowski's novel “Substance” (ed. Literanova sign) scheduled

is on October 14, a week later the author will meet us at the Center

Culture CASTLE in Poznań.

Witkowski returns to fiction — he does it with great momentum and literary

impudence. Like the Marquis de Merteuil, he intrigues, seduces the reader and

invites you to a court full of masks, rituals and violence.

Year 1770. Unhealthy reigns in the Krystynopolskie Palace

atmosphere — closer to shameless murmurs than to aristocratic manors.

Among this sodoma and gomore, Anna Potocka — the wife of the richest magnate and

the biggest devotee in the castle — she pulls the strings skillfully. The worst thugs

they dance as he plays them, and dance

All those who are at odds with the Potocki are invited to the macabre. They pack

so, as if there is no tomorrow, and behind the scenes Anna is planning who to spend for

your dumb son, how to punish promiscuous manors and how to recover the stolen

diamond.

In this world, revenge, greed and passions rule.

Manners are breaking down, the Republic is sinking, terror is coming, but everyone is still

They play their roles. The national situation is getting more and more complicated

It's like the last dance on the Titanic. And in the shadow of great events, he plays

The tragedy of a girl in love with the heir of Potocki.

This is a moment of solstice strangely close to our times. Nothing

is what it seems. The author crosses the boundaries of species and in pursuit of

Gombrowicz takes on a perverse game with the romantic tradition. And he does it in

in a very ironic way. Something in the shape of a national opera à rebours is being created. {publisher description}

hosted by: Piotr Śliwiński

Duration: 90 min/age: 18+

MICHAEL WITKOWSKI

— writer, journalist,

actor. Author of excellent and high-profile prose books. For the novel

“Lubiewo” received in 2006 the Literary Prize

Gdynia. He was nominated for the “Polityka” Passport Award in 2005 and

twice for the Nike Literary Award (in 2006 for “Lubiewo” and in 2007

for “Fototapeta”). In 2025 he became a laureate

Poznan Adam Mickiewicz Literary Prize awarded for

his entire body of work, with reference to the last book — “Faith.

Autobiography”, which was published in 2023 and is announced as the first

part of a larger autobiographical story.

PIOTR ŚLIWIŃSKI — historian and literary critic, professor, directs

Department of Poetics and Literary Criticism, works at Adam's University

Mickiewicz in Poznań. Curator of Poznan Poetry Festival, jury of Poznań

The Silesius Literary Prize and the Wrocław Poetry Prize. Author,

co-author and editor of many books, recently published, among others, a collection

“Inattention to meanings. Sketches and pretexts” and anthologies edited by him “Reverse

all right. A selection of poems from the 80s of the XX century” and “Life just in case.

A selection of poems from the 1990s”.