Aurelia Stanek

Kraków / Berlin

Aurelia Stanek is an essayist and editor based between Kraków and Berlin. She writes about housing, inheritance and the paperwork of ordinary life, and has spent a decade translating Polish nonfiction into German. She was guest editor of Borrowed Rooms, the winter 2026 issue. She is finishing a book of essays about the apartments her family rented across three countries and one city that changed countries around them.

PLDEEN

Published on HANEEN

Screen-printed illustration of two wooden chairs facing each other across a small table, in flat ochre and faded terracotta

OPINION & ARGUMENT

Translators Should Sign the Cover

Every word of a translated book was chosen by the translator, and yet their name is usually in small print on the title page. A translator of ten years argues it belongs on the front.

An empty rented room with afternoon light falling across bare floorboards and a single key on the windowsill

ESSAY & CRITICISM

Keys Returned on the Last Day

The last day in an apartment is not the day you move out. It is the Friday after, when you come back alone with a bucket and the keys in your pocket. An essay on inventories, deposits and a biscuit tin of forty-one keys.