THE CONFERENCE IS PROUD TO ANNOUNCE ITS GUEST OF HONOR: SABINA BARAL, AN AMERICAN BORN IN WROCLAW, A RENAISSANCE WOMAN.
The first edition of her book “Zapiski z wygnania” [Notes from Exile] which will be the topic of MsBaral’stalk at the conference, sold out in 10 weeks.
MsBaral studied electronics, mathematics, and business. She lectured inhistory of architecture, and design.
She worked for 10 years in California’s Silicon Valley as an electronic engineer and programmed magic. Her ground-breaking internal codes for newly created Intel chips significantly contributed to the explosive growth of the company. She then joined Olivetti and, working in New York and in TurinMs. Baral, still in her 20s, was in charge of all technical development for the company throughout North America. .
During one of her visit toToscany, she fell in love with marble quarries. Soon after, she left the computer industry and built a huge business around this new passion. SABINA Marble & Granite has become synonymouswith quality, ethics, and good taste. The company’s list of clients read like WHO IS WHO in Silicon Valley,as well as Armani and Ralph Lauren stores, Martha Stewart, and Holt-Renfrew, the most prestigious chain of luxury goods shops in Canada. The company won awards for design annually, including the most coveted one, the famous CoTYknown also as the Oscar for Design. The company’s showrooms were awarded as best in the nation.Giorgio Armani, grateful to Ms. Baral for the wonderful look of shops she created, surprised her with creations and jewelry designed especially for her.
Baral sold her company after 20 years when her husband, a world-famous oncologist, asked her to move to Stockholm for a few years sohe could once again work with his Alma Mater. Sabina traveled extensively during this Swedish period, visiting over 100 countries on all continents. She wrote about her travels and, sometimes,she also wrote about the hard moments of her lifewhen, in 1968 she was forced to leave Poland because she was Jewish. This is how her book, Notes from Exile, came into being.
The book is one of a kind. Although the events of March 1968 were described in many scholarly works and journalistic analyses, ZAPISKI is the first position in which the disgraceful period is described by one of its victims. Raving reviews, two printings,and a nomination to ANGELUS, the Literary Award of Middle Europe, sum up the extraordinary success of this literary debut.RemigiuszGrzelacalls the book “text with firepower”,
In 2017 the book will be published in English,translated by the author. She meets frequently and with great success with readers in Poland, Sweden, France, the US, and Canada, often in Polish Consulates. There is never enough room. People stand, sit in corridors, buy multiple copies of the book as gift for others.
Her extraordinary photos of multiple journeys to Africa were published in the US and in Canada – Barallongs to have more time for photo exhibits.
She says about herself: „ I am polyglot, because I want to communicate, a traveler because experiencing firsthand is the only way, and a cook, because I love noise around my table. I adore cities by the water, the golden light of dusk, and people who live lives to the fullest and give wholeheartedly.”
The Higher School of Tourism and Foreign Languages is extremely honoured to host such a notable person.