Polish Nobel Prize winner Tokarczuk launches foundation with prize money

Olga Tokarczuk has launched a foundation to support the work of writers and translators. The recently named winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, who collected the award in Stockholm this week, will use part of her winnings to fund the institution.

At a press conference launching the foundation, Tokarczuk said that it will also aim to promote Polish culture, to fight discrimination, and to support civil liberties and animal rights, reports Gazeta Wyborcza.

The foundation will be based in Wrocław, a city with which the writer has long been associated and which made her an honorary citizen earlier this year. Speaking alongside city mayor Jacek Sutryk and director of Wrocław Literature House Irek Grin, Tokarczuk said that she aims for it to be

a space for international conversation about the capability of literature to diagnose the visible and invisible world, to describe the reality in which xenophobic and nationalist sentiments are growing dangerously quickly, and finally a space dedicated to the conversation about art and man as a part of nature.

Tokarczuk, who is to be joined on the advisory board of the foundation by Grin as well as the film director Agnieszka Holland, announced that 350,000 złoty (81,000 euro) of the winnings from her Nobel Prize will go towards the new foundation.

The writer said that she felt it important to use the prize to do something good for the world. She hoped that the new institution would promote Polish culture around the world, advocate for human rights and civil liberties, and also support the local region.

The foundation, which is likely to become active after approval of its statute in January, will also support other causes close to Tokarczuk’s heart, including women’s and animal’s rights, anti-discrimination campaigns, environmental issues, NGOs and volunteering.