Akcent is a quarterly magazine devoted to literature and other fields of art in the context of the latest achievements in the humanities. It has been published since 1980 in Lublin. The Book Institute is co-publisher of journal, along with the Akcent Eastern Culture Foundation.
Akcent examines cultural processes at the crossroads of nationalities. The journal sparked considerable interest in the subject many years ago, back when it was banned by the communist censors. The forty-year legacy of Akcent authors, from Ryszard Kapuściński to Tomas Venclova, is captured in an anthology, ‘Na pograniczu narodów i kultur. Polska – Europa – Ameryka’ (At the Crossroads of Nations and Cultures: Poland – Europe – America, Czytelnik, Warsaw 2020).
The journal has been called the ‘home of the most outstanding poets’ – it has published works by Wojciech Młynarski, and translations of such songwriting talents as Georges Brassens, Jacques Brel, Bulat Okudzhava, Vladimir Vysotsky, and, in recent years, Marek Andrzejewski, Jan Kondrak, Marcin Różycki, Basia Stępniak-Wilk and Wojciech Waglewski.
Akcent also sporadically publishes thematic blocks of pieces on a joint theme, issue or figure, such as: ‘The November Rising’, ‘The Child and the World’, ‘Suicides and Others’, ‘Games – Subjects and Methods’, ‘Peasants – Creators of Culture’, ‘The Warsaw Rising’, ‘Hungary and the Hungarians’, ‘Comedy, Humour and the Grotesque in European Culture’, ‘Polish Americans’, ‘Karol Wojtyła – Poet, Dramaturg, Philosopher’, ‘Reading Ukraine’, ‘Lithuania – Very Close Strangers’ and ‘Józef Piłsudski in the History of Culture’.
The quarterly has run such authors as Edward Balcerzan, Bogusław Bakuła, Karl Dedecius, Jacek Dehnel, Anna Frajlich, Michał Głowiński, Paweł Huelle, Ryszard Kapuściński, Tadeusz Konwicki, István Kovács, Hanna Krall, Jacek Łukasiewicz, Leszek Mądzik, Danuta Mostwin, Wiesław Myśliwski, Wacław Oszajca, Mykoła Riabczuk, Piotr Sommer, Sergiusz Sterna-Wachowiak, Jerzy Święch and Archbishop Józef Życiński.