Writing the World with Grzegorz Kwiatkowski
Cheuse@10 Challenge
Saturday, October 4, 2025 5:00 PM to 7:00 PM EDT
Address sent on RSVP, Cleveland Park, DC
RSVP to join us for a community conversation with the Cheuse Center’s Visiting Writer from Poland, Grzegorz Kwiatkowski. Grzegorz will read his poetry, followed by a community conversation on 'Ethics and Nationalism' led by Cheuse Director Leeya Mehta.
This event is also the official launch of the Cheuse@10 Challenge. This Challenge will help sustain and grow our work to bring influential international writers to our community to deepen our fellowship. We aim to raise $5,000 at the evening's event towards our Cheuse@10 Challenge goal of $50,000.
About Grzegorz Kwiatkowski, the Cheuse Center’s Visiting Artist: Grzegorz Kwiatkowski is a distinguished Polish poet, musician, academic, and human rights activist. He is the Fortunoff Video Archive Artist-in-Residence in 2025 at Yale University, where he also collaborates with Peter Cole. Kwiatkowski has earned international recognition for both his poetry and his activism. His literary works, including the acclaimed collection ‘Crops’, tackle profound themes of violence, genocide, and human rights. Translated by Peter Constantine, ‘Crops’has been published in the United States, and beyond. Kwiatkowski’s poetry is not merely a reflection on the past, but an urgent call to confront the realities of hatred and violence in the present.
Kwiatkowski is also an activist who helped uncover nearly half a million pairs of shoes left to decay near the Stutthof concentration camp in Poland. Kwiatkowski has been fighting for the site to be preserved and recognized officially as a site of memory. During his residency at the Fortunoff Archive, Kwiatkowski will combine testimony, historical research, and his artistic vision to create a new work that speaks to the enduring importance of remembering the atrocities of the Holocaust. He plans to exhibit this work in both Gdańsk and at Yale University, further bridging the historical connection between Poland and the wider world. During his Cheuse Residency, he will be sharing poems from ‘Crops’, as well as from his new English manuscript ‘Without an Orchestra’.
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CHEUSE@10 CURATION:
The 10th Anniversary Year of the Cheuse Center will feature Irish writer, Colm Tóibín and also, German writer Malte Herwig. It is part of a specially curated series of events around ideas of a literature of ethics and sanctuary. It is a way of connecting writers, people, and place. We will highlight Colm Tóibín's story of Thomas Mann's escape from Germany to America through the efforts of Washington Post publisher Agnes Meyer, in his novel 'The Magician'. Thomas Mann scholar, Malte Herwig, will stimulate conversations with Grzegorz's work in intimate and strange ways. Grzegorz explores the lands of Poland that were occupied by the Germans during the Second World War. Malte Herwig's upcoming documentary is on his grandfather, who was one of the German soldier's who occupied Poland during the 1930s. Thomas Mann settled for a while in Los Angeles. Herwig's grandfather was a rower, and won a gold medal for Germany in the LA Olympics. As we explore history and culture, the Cheuse Center will serve its mission to enrich public life through reading, writing, and translation.
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GIVING:
Donations: Funds raised will go to the Cheuse Center's primary goal: to directly support writers. We aim to raise $5,000 at the evening's event to support the Cheuse Lecutre, writer residencies and programs.
About the Challenge:
Cheuse@10 Challenge 2025-26: $50,000
Generous donors have already contributed $10,000 to the challenge, and we aim to match that amount in the coming months. Gifts of any size are welcome and will directly advance the Center’s research, programs, and impact.
Donations:
Donations can be made through your preferred giving method:
1. Checks at the event made out to: George Mason University Foundation, Inc.; Memo: Cheuse Center.
2. Online: Using this Link.
3. Mail: check payable to George Mason University Foundation, Inc. and mailed to:
George Mason University Foundation, Inc.
4400 University Dr. MS1A3
Fairfax, VA 22030
Memo: Cheuse Center
To learn more about the Cheuse@10 Challenge, click here.
Our Mission: The Cheuse Center is a global community of writers, translators, and readers. We send emerging writers abroad, bring established and new voices to America, and curate public programs to deepen global civic engagement. We are a home for international writers and for American writers who face out into the world. By enriching public life through reading, writing, and translation, we actively pursue a just society.
