L
exicon is fully engaged in sending books concerning Polish LGBTQ+ community outside Poland to university libraries worldwide. We are committed to making as many LGBTQ+ books available as possible.
For Anna Wolińska, CEO at Lexicon, it is crucial to present a comprehensive picture of Polish culture. One of the newer phenomena is the flood of literature dealing with the LGBTQ+ community – not only about the one that now operates, making successive coming-outs, organizing equality parades, but also about people important to Polish culture who have not had a chance to reveal their orientation in the past, such as for example, Maria Konopnicka and Maria Dulębianka.
Lexicon team is aware that we should not overlook any aspect of Polish culture. We would like scientists of the most important universities in the world to be aware of this nowadays significant current in Polish culture. Our foreign partners are keenly interested in it and are asking us for any materials related to the emancipation of LGBTQ+ communities.
NOT ONLY BOOKS
Anna Kocan-Rodak, one of the people responsible for cooperation with foreign partners at Lexicon, attends the Warsaw Equality Parade every year and collects leaflets, which Lexicon then sends to universities in the United States and Western Europe. – The need to collect materials about the LGBTQ+ community results from the interests of our clients in this topic. This phenomenon is interesting because we are now in the 21st century, and it would seem that our perspectives change with the progress of civilization. Unfortunately, in many countries LGBTQ + communities are still discriminated and have to fight for their rights. We collect all leaflets, gadgets, posters or folders for an increasing number of institutions. We are also getting more and more requests for books on this subject – remarks Anna, who works with key foreign partners of Lexicon.
THE PRESENT AND AND PAST OF THE LGBTQ+ COMMUNITY IN POLAND
Our foreign partners pay close attention not only to what is happening now, but also to the past of Polish non-heteronormative people. That is why the reportage “Hiacynt. PRL wobec homoseksualistów” by Remigiusz Ryziński, the author nominated for the Nike Award for the book “Foucault w Warszawie”, is so popular among them.
Remigiusz Ryziński is a philosopher, cultural critic, writer, and academic lecturer who works on gender and queer theory. “My book covers three actions that took place in 1985, 1986, and 1987, actions against homosexual men, against gays, carried out nationwide in November each year, which resulted in 14,000 records concerning these men. It is a story about superiority, the cruelty of power, about the pain and suffering it can provoke for its own interests”, says Remigiusz Ryziński.
In this short film he presents his four books. English subtitles are available:
Lexicon is launching a summer campaign for its partners, during which it will be possible to purchase books thematically related to the LGBTQ+ community. If you are interested in details, click here: LGBTQ+ LEXICON CAMPAIGN.
