Agnieszka Wolny-Hamkało

(1979) – poet, publicist, literary critic, cultural expert; scholarship holder of the Literarisches Colloquium Berlin.

Agnieszka Wolny-Hamkało’s debut coincided with the growing interest in the topic of the body within the humanities and arts at the end of the 1990s. In her early work, she embraced images of ugliness – neglected suburbs, street life – and used sensual, vivid metaphors, which were present also in her later volumes, albeit with varied scopes and meanings.

The images and scenes of Wolny-Hamkało’s poems, in which the subject – both perceptive and receptive – and its bodily experiences play an important role, are inseparable from the spot-lit sensuality of the language; sometimes a single phrase, other times a casually thrown-out sentence, or an intriguing word. Some have said that since the collection “Gospel”, Wolny-Hamkało’s poems have lost their improvisational narrative nature but gained in “density”. Shorter phrasing has also appeared, reflecting the language of pop culture and the corporate and media world. The stories of many of the subjects from the collection “Ani mi się śni” (I Wouldn’t Dream of It) or the volume “Nikon i Leica” (Nikon and Leica) are anonymous and diverse, yet at the same time coherent, with distinct characters. Their purpose is, in a sense, to be in a state of limbo. The “I” lies beyond love, fulfilment or non-fulfilment. What is also clear in these texts is the subject’s maintenance of the desire for an intense life, which is always strongly felt in a physical sense.

In Wolny-Hamkało’s prose, the reader will find a juxtaposition of human relationships and references to the condition of the world. The backdrop for the events that take place in her books are frames from a bygone era, filled with symbols of transformation. She also employs pop culture clichés – for example, in the book “Zaćmienie” (Eclipse). In the novel “Moja córka komunistka” (My Daughter the Communist), she uses multi-layered concepts – for example, the interaction between food and life changes – presenting the symbolism of hunger, thirst, and various kinds of indigestion. In her latest books for children and teenagers (“Lato Adeli”, Adela’s Summer; “Po śladach”, Following the Traces), she addresses the innocence of childhood and the anxieties of adolescence. The plot description in these books is condensed, saturated with complex metaphors and filled with real topographical references.

Wolny-Hamkało has collaborated with “Gazeta Wyborcza”, “Tygodnik Powszechny”, “Polityka”, “Dwutygodnik”, “Lampa” and “Bluszcz”. She is the literary curator of the International Short Story Festival. She has created performances staged at the Manhattan Gallery in Łódź, the Entropia Gallery in Wrocław, Mózg Club in Bydgoszcz, and the Pan Tadeusz Museum (“Test Turinga”, The Turing Test). She has also written a number of plays: “Dzień dobry, wszyscy umrzemy” (Good Morning, We’re All Going to Die, Dialog Theatre, 2015), “Nad rzeką, której nie było” (By the River That Wasn’t There, Kubuś Theatre in Kielce, 2018), “Wyzwolenie: królowe” (Liberation: Queens, Capitol Theatre in Wrocław, 2019), “Alicja” (Capitol Theatre in Wrocław, 2021), “Niebieska linia” (The Blue Line, Dialog Theatre, 2022), and “Gotyk Polski” (Polish Gothic, Dialog Theatre, 2023). In addition, she has edited the short story anthologies “Projekt Mężczyzna” (The Man Project, co-edited with Justyna Sobolewska, 2009), “ORWO” (co-edited with Dorota Hartwich, 2011), “7 grzechów głównych” (7 deadly sins, 2012), and “Transgresje” (Transgressions, 2014).

For the volume “Spamy miłosne” (Love Spam), Wolny-Hamkało was nominated for the Gdynia Literary Prize (2008) and the Cogito Public Media Award in the field of fiction (2008). She received an honourable mention from the Polish Section of IBBY for “Nikt nas nie upomni” (No One Will Rebuke Us, 2017). In 2019, she won the IBBY Award for her book for young people, “Lato Adeli”. For the novel “Po śladach”, she was nominated for the Hestia Literary Journey Award (2022).

Her poems have been translated into English, Russian, Ukrainian, Italian, Chinese, Hungarian, German, Swedish, Danish, Czech, Serbian and Slovak.