In April 1940, over twenty thousand Polish officers were killed by the Soviets in the forest of Katyń. A bare few hundred of those soldiers survived. The way I remember my grandfather telling the story of his capture on Poland’s…
Blog Archives
The train that didn’t go to Katyń
Tagged with: Alissa Valles, art, books, history, Józef Czapski, Memories of Starobielsk: Essays on Art and History, NYRB Classics, Polish, Translation
Posted in books, history, translation
Posted in books, history, translation
Russia: knife, fork, and ladle
The Romanovs, Lenin, Gagarin – they all had their cooks. Holodomor, Leningrad, Chernobyl, Afghanistan – sometimes there is nothing (safe) to cook at all. For some people, like the Tatars, cooking is all you have left of home. Others, like…
Tagged with: Antonia Lloyd-Jones, books, How to Feed a Dictator, Polish, Rosja od Kuchni, Russia, Translation, Witold Szabłowski
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Foucault in Warsaw
In Warsaw in 1958, Foucault was writing his History of Madness. Then, it was his PhD, and he was the first director of the university’s French Cultural Centre. Within a year, he’d left Poland. Was Jurek, his mystery lover, to…
Tagged with: Dowody na istnienie, Foucault, Open Letter, Polish, Queer, Remigiusz Ryziński, Sean Bye, Translation, Warsaw
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Waiting for translation: Wolf River
It is two years and more since this pandemic began. In March 2020, it hadn’t knocked Europe out yet, but it was going to very soon. The signs were there. In March 2020, this book began. It hadn’t knocked me…
Women in Translation Month: The Map
Is this an adventure novel, war memoir, seven short stories, or one of those new approaches to history through objects? It’s all that and more. The real protagonist is not a person, but a map. Do you know Rembrandt van…
Tagged with: books, Kate Webster, Mapa, Poland, Polish, Rembrandt, Terra Librorum, The Map, Translation, Women in Translation Month, Wydawnictwo Nisza
Posted in books, translation, Women in Translation Month
Posted in books, translation, Women in Translation Month
The lost soul – zgubiona dusza
The man was moving so fast he had completely forgotten why he was moving at all. So he went to see a wise woman. And the wise woman said, “Slow down. You have to wait for your soul to catch…
Tagged with: Antonia Lloyd-Jones, books, Joanna Concejo, Olga Tokarczuk, Poland, Polish, Seven Stories Press, The Lost Soul, Translation, Wydawnictwo Format, Zgubiona dusza
Posted in books, Illustration, Nobel Prize in Literature, translation
Posted in books, Illustration, Nobel Prize in Literature, translation
Honey, I Killed the Cats
After translations into dozens of languages, this has taken seven years to appear in English, but the wait is worth it. A twentysomething woman in the States, still hopelessly single when…
Tagged with: Benjamin Paloff, books, Deep Vellum, Dorota Masłowska, Honey I killed the Cats, Marcin Nowak, Polish, Translation
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Accomodations
Wiola is growing up. We are still growing up in parallel. She is a student in Poland exactly when I am a student in Poland, the academic session of 1995/1996. Except I’m in Warsaw for a year of my degree,…
Tagged with: Accommodations, books, Jennifer Croft, Polish, Translation, Wioletta Greg
Posted in books, translation
Posted in books, translation
Swallowing Mercury
Wioletta Greg is frankly fantastic, and Eliza Marciniak has rendered her voice in English delightfully. A good friend gave this translation of Swallowing Mercury for my birthday, and her only concern was that I might have it already, but I might not…
Tagged with: books, Eliza Marciniak, National Translation Award, Polish, Swallowing Mercury, Translation, Wioletta Greg
Posted in books, history, literature, translation
Posted in books, history, literature, translation
Drive your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
It can be both easier and harder to translate an author who is so aware of the translation process herself. The heroine of this novel and her friend are translating Blake into Polish; they come up with multiple versions of…
Tagged with: Antonia Lloyd-Jones, books, Drive your Plough Over the Bones of the Dead, Fitzcarraldo Editions, Olga Tokarczuk, Polish, Translation
Posted in books, film, translation
Posted in books, film, translation
found in translation 