The book “NASZ NASZEGO NASZEMU NASZYM” by Anna Dąbrowska, published by the Workshops of Culture, is now available for purchase. It is a moving account of the humanitarian crisis on the Polish–Belarusian border, written from the perspective of someone providing aid. The author raises questions about responsibility, solidarity and the price one pays for choosing humanity.
About the book
Winter 2021. The border with Belarus. (…)
This book is about the price of that rescue work.
At peace are those who do not help, for they are not haunted at night by the thought that they could have done more. At peace are those who have never experienced that helping others can become a source of contempt and shame. At peace because they have never come to know themselves, nor the price of their own peace.
Anna Dąbrowska’s book can be read as an indictment and as an examination of conscience, as a cold analysis of the politics of fear and as a poetic confession of a wounded soul. But above all, it must be read.
“Have you had enough yet?” the author asks halfway through.
Yes, I’ve had enough. But I keep reading, after all, I’m Polish – and we are supposedly known for our courage.
Excerpt from a review by journalist and writer Maciej Zaremba Bielawski
About the author
Anna Dąbrowska is a human rights defender, social activist and migration expert. She is the President of the Lublin-based Homo Faber Association and co-manages the “Baobab” community centre, an integration space for both new and long-time residents of Lublin. She is the recipient of the Janina Paradowska and Jerzy Zimowski Foundation Award (2018), the Andrzej Wajda Award (2022), and the European Solidarity Centre’s Solidarity and Human Rights Badge of Honour (2025). She is also the author of the blog “Circles of strangeness / kręgi obcości”. In her private life, she is an ultrarunner.
“NASZ NASZEGO NASZEMU NASZYM” is published by the Workshops of Culture. The book is available for purchase for 35 zł from the publisher’s website.
About the publisher
The Workshops of Culture Publishing House, run by the municipal cultural institution the Workshops of Culture in Lublin, is a small independent publisher focusing on the literature and culture of Central and Eastern Europe. Its publishing programme centres primarily on the “Eastern Express” series, which features prose, essays and poetry across a variety of genres. The series showcases the work of some of the most distinguished writers from Ukraine, Belarus, Latvia and Lithuania. The publishing house also takes pride in its collaboration with Bohdan Zadura, one of Poland’s foremost translators of Ukrainian prose and poetry. Among its achievements is the 2022 Angelus Central European Literary Award for the Polish translation of Zoltán Mihály Nagy’s novel “Szatański pomiot”, translated from Hungarian by Daniel Warmuz. Another significant milestone for the Workshops of Culture was Artem Chekh’s “Punkt zerowy” reaching the final shortlist for the Ryszard Kapuściński Award in 2020.
All books published by the Workshops of Culture in Lublin are available from the publisher’s website.