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2019
1-31 March: I’m at the Europäisches Übersetzer-Kollegium (EÜK) in the town of Straelen, in the deepest province of North Rhine-Westphalia, to work on my English translation of Renate Schmidgall’s bilingual (German & Polish) poetry collection Pojechać do Weinsberg / Nach Weinsberg fahren. The EÜK offers a dream combination of solitude and community, focus and inspiration. The library extends right into the guest rooms. My room houses German literature (original and in translation) from Ha- to He-, so I’m surrounded by Haratischwili, Hegemann and Heine in several different alphabets. Polish literature is in room 16 – I’ll have to knock on someone’s door to borrow a book. The greatest advantage of being here is that Renate Schmidgall, herself an outstanding translator of Polish literature into German, is here with me. We come together every afternoon and go over my translations of her poems and I essentially get a free master class. I couldn’t imagine a more empowering collaboration. The next step: finding a publisher…
Innes Keighren reviewed my translation of Friedrich Ratzel’s Lebensraum for Progress in Human Geography, discussing at some length my philosophy and politics of translation as presented in my translator’s introduction. It’s wonderful to be heard!
2018
The internationales literaturfestival berlin just came to an end. I had the pleasure to interpret for writer and illustrator Caitlin Dale Nicholson (Canada) and illustrator Sydney Smith (Canada), who both work with children’s books, as well as writer and poet Michał Książek (Poland). It was great fun to help Caitlin and Sydney engage with their young audiences. Michał Książek appeared on two panels on ecopoetry and writing from a bird’s perspective. I also hosted a discussion focusing solely on his travel book Droga 816 (Road 816). It’s one of the most delightful books I’ve read in the recent past, a beautiful narrative full of moving encounters with people and birds. Nature writing at its very best. Check out Renate Schmidgall’s excellent German translation, Straße 816, and watch this space on news about an English translation.
I just signed the contract to translate Lena Magnone‘s two-volume study Emisariusze Freuda into English. The work is funded by a generous grant from the Polish Ministry of Science and Higher Education. The working title for the book’s English version is “Freud’s Emissaries: The Cultural Transfer of Psychoanalysis in Prewar Poland” and it’s due to be published online in 2022 with sdvig press.
Dominik W. Rettinger ’s novel Kommando Puff (Whore of the Reich) explores forced prostitution in Auschwitz. You can find my reader’s report on Polish Books I’ve been reading lately.
My translation of the German geographer Friedrich Ratzel’s “Lebensraum“ essay (1901) just appeared online in a special issue of the Journal of Historical Geography. The publication includes a Translator’s Note as well as scholarly essays that contextualise this influential piece.
The Centre Pompidou in Paris is organising an exhibition on Unism, an avant-garde movement spearheaded by Polish artists Władysław Strzemiński and Katarzyna Kobro. I just finished translating a few essays for the English version of the catalogue. The exhibition will be on from 24 October 2018 until 19 January 2019.
I translated six essays for the volume Ends of War: Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Past and New Polish Regions after 1944, edited by Paulina Gulińska-Jurgiel, Yvonne Kleinmann, Miloš Řezník and Dorothea Warneck. The authors explore how Polish society consolidated – or perhaps reinvented itself – after the experience of war, occupation, forced migration, exile and the Shoah. In Poland and its neigbouring regions, they argue, there was no definite “end” to the war. The essays in this book examine various phases of transition and reorientation from historical, sociological, legal, linguistic and psychological perspectives.Ends of War is due to appear with Wallstein Verlag and you can pre-order it here.
Jakub Małecki, born 1982, is a highly respected writer of the young generation. His books, though shortlisted and awarded with numerous literary prizes, are still waiting to be translated into English. I wrote a report on his third novel, Rdza (Rust). Please get in touch if you’d like to see my 20-page sample translation, funded by the Polish Book Institute.
2017
My translation of Ryszard Nycz‘s influential study, The Language of Polish Modernism (Język modernizmu), just appeared with Peter Lang. Nycz debunks the myth of Polish Modernist literature as rooted in rash, immediate expression, and instead treats Modernist literature itself as a sort of «language» – a distinct entity that emerged through systematic differentiation within the general literary discourse. You can order a hardback copy here.
On 11 June, the English-language bookshop Massolit in Krakow hosted a reading by six English translators of Polish literature. I presented Klementyna Suchanow’s biography of Witold Gombrowicz. My fellow translators – Antonia Lloyd-Jones, David French, Scotia Victoria, Sean Bye and Ursula Phillips – kindly agreed to perform the different voices that in the text (snippets and ads from newspapers, quotations from a nineteenth-century book about social mores, an old church record, memoirs by Piłsudski’s wife,…). Gombrowicz’s American translator, Danuta Borchardt, meanwhile, read the bits from the novel Pornografia, in her own translation. It was a really special moment. Thank you, all! Photos will be up soon!
I was honoured to be invited to the 4th International Translators’ Congress in Krakow (9-11 June). 222 translators from 44 different countries. What a fantastic opportunity to meet writers, publishers, critics and translators, to learn about the latest developments in Polish language & literature, and to quiz experts on the latest developments in the cultural scene. A big thank you to the Polish Book Institute. (Here‘s the programme and here are some photos.)
Asymptote‘s Spring issue features my translation of a sample from Bartek Sabela’s “Every Grain of Sand” (Wszystkie ziarna piasku, 2015). This reportage on the Sahrawi people’s struggle for freedom from Moroccan occupation is personal, thought-provoking and engaging. See for yourself how Sabela’s evocative photographs enhance his clear and informative writing. I love Naï Zakharia’s illustration, too.
I just returned from the Found in Translation Festival in Gdańsk (6-8 April, 2017), where I moderated a discussion on autotranslation and multilingualism (8 April at 12.00 noon on the programme). A big thank you to my wonderful panellists: Birutė Jonuškaitė, Gwyneth Lewis, Leta Semadeni and Żanna Słoniowska. Watch this space for a recording and/or transcript of our conversation!
Klementyna Suchanow’s biography of Witold Gombrowicz is about to appear, in Polish, with the independent publishing house Czarne. Having translated a 20-page sample, I cannot wait to get my hands on the finished book – not only because I’ve been obsessed with Gombrowicz for years, but also because Suchanow’s writing is addictive. Click here for a tiny extract of my sample, and here for a (pre)view of the book. Thank you to Anna Blasiak and the wonderful team at the European Literature Network! And of course, feel free to contact me if you’re interested in my 20-page sample.
My translation of Maciej Miłkowski’s short story “Playground Archeology“ just appeared with Words Without Borders. It was a pleasure to translate this story, which starts off as a meditation on memory but soon develops the visceral intensity of a family drama. Maciej’s subtlety and dry wit are as impressive as ever, but what stayed with me most is the rhythm of the language and the way he allows tension to build up throughout the narrative. Enjoy reading!
I am working on the first English translation of Friedrich Ratzel’s (in)famous essay on “Lebensraum”. My draft translation of the German geographer’s work will be discussed at the trans-disciplinary workshop “Bio- and geopolitics in historical perspective” (see poster) at St John’s College, University of Oxford, in May. A final version will then be published in the Journal of Historical Geography.
2016
Following our panel discussion at the London Book Fair, Marta Dziurosz, Translator in Residence at Free Word Centre, asked me to contribute an essay to Free Word’s blog. Click here for the short version of my essay, “It’s Not About Passing,” published by Free Word, or here for the unabridged version.
Click here for an excerpt from Cezary Łazarewicz‘s reportage on the fatal beating of an 18-year-old boy by the Polish militia in 1983. You’ll also find a short introduction by Piotr Kofta. Both translated by yours truly and published in New Books from Poland (No. 63, autumn 2016).
Poland is set to be the market focus for the London Book Fair in 2017! Watch this space for my thoughts on Polish books I’ve been reading lately (and why they should be made available in English).
My English translation (from the Polish and German) of Stanisław Strasburger’s essay “On Refugees and False Heroes: How Poland Forgets about Its Own Displacement” appeared in Fikrun Wa Fann/Art and Thought, a publication of the Goethe Institut. Click here for the online version.
On 12 April 2016 I discussed non-native translation with my fellow panellists at the London Book Fair. I suggested that those of us who grew up multilingual may not feel at home in any one language, but we feel at home in translation. Annie McDermott reported on our panel for In Other Words, 45 (2016).
Stanisław Fijałkowski’s solo exhibition “Before and after Abstraction” was on at Galerie Isabella Czarnowska in Berlin from 29 April till 16 July 2016. Here is my translation of Anda Rottenberg’s essay “Long Before and Immediately After” – a 15-page introduction to the the catalogue, published in Cologne by Verlag der Buchhandlung Walther König, 2016.
My translation of Witold Gombrowicz’s “The Tragic Tale of the Baron and His Wife”, published in the spring issue 2016 of The Paris Review, can be read here.
2015
Click here for my versions of five short essays by Maciej Miłkowski, written and translated during the Crossing Border festival in The Hague, November 2015.
The Conrad Festival in Krakow (19-25 October 2015) was a real treat. My report appeared on the Vintage International Writing Blog.
My translation of Maciej Miłkowski’s story “The Tattoo” was awarded the Harvill Secker Young Translators’ Prize 2015 and published online by Granta! You can read it here.
My review of Paweł Wojtas’s Translating Gombrowicz’s Liminal Aesthetics was published in Gombrowicz-Blätter, 4 (2015).
Here you can read an extract of my translation of Witold Gombrowicz’s ‘Travels in Argentina,’ published in First Lines, 4 (2015), pp. 3-8.
2014
Click here to read my interview with Gombrowicz’s American translator Danuta Borchardt in Asymptote‘s October issue.
Tul'si Bhambry, PhD 