Nearly 100 writers and artists, including 24 from abroad, are taking part in the International Joseph Conrad Festival of Literature. which began on Tuesday in Krakow.

The motto of this year's festival is "Other worlds, other languages."

“We aim to show this year famous work abroad but little known in Poland, so as to reduce the distance between literary life here and the rest of the world,” said artistic director of the festival Michal Pawel Markowski.

The festival has invited guests from Ukraine, Slovenia, Romania, Hungary, Germany, Sweden, France, Italy, Turkey and the US.

Special guests include last year's Nobel Prize winner Herta Mueller plus Marjane Satrapi, Rabih Alameddine, Claude Lanzmann, Yuri Andrukhovych, Sven Lindqvist, Jean Hatzfeld, Laszlo Krasznahorkai.

Polish writers and artists attending include Andrzej Stasiuk, Przemyslaw Czaplinski, Maciej Zaremba and Miroslaw Balka.

Festival events will be held in 20 locations around the city, including the Goethe Institute, the International Cultural Centre and National Museum.

The festival ends Sunday. (pg)