The author of the novel “Joachim” and the fairy tale “Garbuska pełna energii” began her meeting with guests who came to the Local Community Centre on Friday, 20 February. She talked about her writing journey and the people who lent her a helping hand.
– Thanks to the Municipal Culture and Sport Centre and my friend Beata Widera, who has been close to me since primary school, I can meet wonderful people in the Local Community Centres of Bolesławiec Municipality – says Grażyna Hanaf. – I have been to Trzebień, which I will visit again, this time with stories from Morocco; I was a guest in Kraśnik Dolny, and Kruszyn is still waiting for me. I return from each of these meetings extremely grateful and enchanted by the organisers’ kindness, the warmth of the guests invited to the meeting and their willingness to spend time with me. I always try to prepare well and make the time spent with me special. So I entertain the guests with stories, read a fairy tale and, as far as I can, help make dreams come true – the writer adds.
There were many children at the meeting, and the author of “Garbuska” had to focus primarily on them. Drawing the fairy tale’s title character proved an effective activity for the young readers, but the children were still full of thousands of questions for the writer. The children were not the only ones with questions for the author. The assembled audience wanted to know how long she had spent writing the novel and how long the fairy tale, where she got her plot ideas, whether she knew how the story would end, when she began writing and whether she identified with her characters. Grażyna Hanaf tried to answer all the questions in a way that would satisfy the listeners.
There was plenty of laughter during the therapeutic part, which involved writing dreams on cards specially prepared for this purpose. Some indicated that even a hundred cards would not be enough to write down all their dreams, while others sat over a blank card and did not know what to write. The cards on which the participants managed to record their deepest dreams were burned after the meeting. The ladies from Kraśnik Dolny packed the burned wishes – now in the form of ashes – into a jar and presented it to the author, who promised to scatter them from the Eiffel Tower in Paris. Strengthened by delicious cake prepared by the residents and warm words, Grażyna Hanaf said goodbye to hospitable Kraśnik Dolny.
Below, we present drawings by children from Kraśnik Dolny.
