The Polish Book Institute’s stand at Frankfurter Buchmesse. Image: Publishing Perspectives, Hannah Johnson
By Jarosław Adamowksi | @JaroslawAdamows
The Book Institute of Poland ‘Under New Management’
Last year, Polish publishers released a reported 33,893 titles—an increase of around 5 percent compared with 2022—according to a report issued by the country’s National Library.
With an estimated 43 percent of Poles telling researchers that they each read at least one book in 2023—the largest book readership level among Polish respondents in 10 years—this positive data fuels optimism among local publishing houses. However, that optimism has been qualified by the woes of small bookstores, the ranks of which are dwindling.
And the number of books published in the Polish market in 2023 is “slightly above the average for the last decade,” according to the National Library report, and definitely higher than the one recorded in the first, most difficult year of the pandemic, 30,391 titles, were published.
The authors of the study write, “The three years that have passed since then can be considered a period of a sort of return to normality and some stabilization.
“Although the number of books published in Poland annually doesn’t reach the record-breaking years of 2017 and 2019, when the number of titles submitted to the National Library exceeded 36,000, they remain at a level similar to that we observed in most years of the last decade prior to the pandemic.”
“According to a survey conducted by Poland’s national library, 43 percent of Poles tell researchers that they read at least one book in 2023—the highest book reading levels among Polish respondents in 10 years.”
The Polish Book Institute is a state-run entity, the tasks of which include promoting book readership in Poland and Polish literature abroad. One way the program operates is in major international book fair participation, which of course brought them to the Frankfurt Book Fair earlier this month.
Following a change in top management related to the December 2023 arrival of a new centrist government in Poland, the institute is continuing its mission, but also advancing new initiatives.
Agnieszka Rasińska-Bóbr, the institute’s vice-director for programs, tells Publishing Perspectives, “The institute’s promotion of Polish literature, conducted systematically since 1999, is based on programs built and developed gradually over the years.
“One of the most important of them is the Poland in Translation Program, addressed to foreign publishers, under which more than 3,200 Polish books have been published
“We also run other programs addressed to foreign publishers,” she says, including “Polish publishers who sell foreign rights, and translators of Polish literature, for example the Translators’ Collegium. Our plans for the coming years foresee the continuation of such long-term activities because they bring measurable results.”
The organizational changes at the institution’s helm could also spur a more favorable environment for the promotion of those Polish writers who were critical of the country’s previous right-wing government, such as the Nobel Prize in Literature-winning novelist Olga Tokarczuk.
“We’re very proud of the Nobel Prize for Olga Tokarczuk,” Rasińska-Bóbr says. “She is certainly the most widely recognized Polish writer in the world today.
“Her books have been translated into about 50 languages, including Malayalam and Faroese, languages in which Polish literature hadn’t been published at all.
“I think that Tokarczuk simply can’t be promoted any better, which doesn’t mean that we don’t help foreign publishers who publish her books. We’ll be very happy if, in the future, our Nobel Prize winner decides to take part in projects promoting Polish literature.”
Rasińska-Bóbr says that female authors have a strong representation in the institute’s promotional activities, and that the majority of writers featured in its flagship “New Books from Poland” catalog are women.
“We definitely want to support creators from genres that are less present in international circulation, such as poets,” she says. “We also see [the value in] developmental areas, such as comic books, hence our presence at Angoulême.”
In fact, Rasińska-Bóbr says, “A special publication we’ll present at Frankfurt also allows us to promote comic books.”
The Institute Moves to Support Bookstores
With the domestic book market in mind, the institute is advancing a program to support local independent bookstores.
“In Poland, the number of small bookstores has been decreasing every year for many years,” Rasińska-Bóbr says, “and those stores that manage to stay in the market are in a difficult financial situation, fighting against competition by retail chains, supermarkets, and in particular online retailers.
“This fight is even more unequal,” she says, “because there are no fixed book prices in Poland.”
In 2021, the Polish Book Institute created the “certificate for small bookstores” program, which allows those companies to secure funding to cover their maintenance costs and buy the necessary equipment, but also to finance promotional activities, consulting and advisory services, and additional projects that foster book readership. Funds are awarded to bookstores for two years, after which bookstores can apply for further two-year certificates.
For the 2024-2025 period, the institute has allocated some 3.4 million Polish zloty (US$863,379) to 85 applicants, according to data released last July.
More from Publishing Perspectives on the Polish book and publishing market is here, more on libraries is here, more on reading development is here, more on Frankfurter Buchmesse is here, and more on industry statistics is here.
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This article appeared originally in our 2024 Frankfurt Book Fair Magazine, which includes a special section of coverage on Guest of Honor Italy as well as information about the Philippines market, ahead of its 2025 turn as Frankfurt’s guest of honor market. The magazine now is available for download, free of charge, here.
Also, PEN International president emerita Jennifer Clement speaks to Publishing Perspectives on censorship ahead of the IPA’s International Publishers Congress (December 3-5); there’s an exit interview with the outgoing IPA president Karine Pansa of Brazil; a wide-ranging interview with Scholastic chief Peter Warwick; perspectives on audio in Italy from Mondadori’s Miriam Spinnato; and more.
More on Frankfurter Buchmesse is here, more on Guest of Honor Philippines 2025 is here, and more on Guest of Honor Italy 2024 is here.
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