Interview conducted by Emmanuel Tagnard, journalist.
Vera Michalski-Hoffmann, a patron and active publisher in Switzerland, France, and Poland, was born in Basel into a family of Swiss, Russian, and Austrian origins. A graduate of the IUHEI in Geneva, she co-founded Éditions Noir sur Blanc in 1986 with her husband, Jan Michalski, with the goal of bridging literary cultures between East and West. Together, they developed a catalog of classic and contemporary Slavic authors translated into French. In 1990, they also established Oficyna Literacka Noir sur Blanc in Warsaw, focusing on translating Western authors into Polish. In Paris, they revived the historic Polish Bookstore and took over Éditions Phébus and Buchet-Chastel, among others. Over the years, they built the Libella group, a European publishing network with a dozen imprints in various fields.
In 2004, Vera Michalski-Hoffmann founded the Jan Michalski Foundation in Montricher in memory of her late husband. The Foundation continues their shared commitment to literature, supporting creative writing and promoting reading. With a large multilingual public library of over 80,000 books, the Foundation organizes exhibitions, cultural events, awards the annual Jan Michalski Prize for World Literature, provides financial support for literary projects worldwide, and hosts a writer-in-residence program.
In French.
