These extracts are from Chapter 8, Georgia: Stalin’s Vestal Virgins. The Georgian women who work at the Stalin museum describe their undying love for the infamous dictator. “He comes to me at night. He gazes at me, puffs on his pipe, and twirls his mustache. He smiles, and then heads for the door. Then I … Continue reading Excerpt: Dancing Bears by Witold Szabłowski
PEN Atlas editor Tasja Dorkofikis interviews Hanna Krall, author of Chasing the Kings of Hearts, a book which recreates the Holocaust not as an historical event but as a terrifying shared experience. Her literary reportage about the Holocaust is unparalleled in its power and immediacy and is available in the UK for the first time Interview translated from … Continue reading Q&A – Hanna Krall, author of Chasing the King of Hearts
The Church Decades of neglect and environmental degradation led to Miedzianka being declared uninhabitable, and the population was evacuated. At the center of the city, the church took the longest to disappear. The church took longest to disappear. In the only surviving color photograph, you can see it had a yellow façade, tall stained-glass … Continue reading Excerpt: History of a Disappearance by Filip Springer
If someone mentions Polish speculative fiction in translation (SFT), you might immediately think about the prolific and much-translated Stanislaw Lem, or perhaps the fantasy writer Andrzej Sapkowski, whose Witcher series started off as a single short story and expanded into a wildly-popular series and then a comic, a film, and a video game. And yet, … Continue reading Polish Speculative Fiction in Translation
Zofia Nalkowska (10 November 1884 – 17 December 1954) is sometimes referred to as the grande dame of Polish literature. She was an active member of the Polish PEN Club, the only female (and a founding member) of the Polish Academy of Literature (1933-1939) and recipient of major awards including the state prize in 1936 … Continue reading Ursula Phillips on Zofia Nałkowska
Acclaimed Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk has received a steady stream of hate mail and even death threats after questioning her country’s view of itself as “an open, tolerant country.” As one person put it in a post to Tokarczuk’s Facebook page, “The only justice for these lies is death. Traitor.” Many agree that Tokarczuk’s “betrayal” … Continue reading When An Author You Translate Gets Death Threats: Polish Writer Olga Tokarczuk Speaks the Truth, Is Attacked For It
Flights, a novel about travel in the twenty-first century and human anatomy, is Olga Tokarczuk’s most ambitious to date. It interweaves travel narratives and reflections on travel with an in-depth exploration of the human body, broaching life, death, motion, and migration. From the seventeenth century, we have the story of the Dutch anatomist Philip Verheyen, … Continue reading Title Pick: FLIGHTS by Olga Tokarczuk
The Table that Ran Away to the Woods tells the tale of a writing desk that one day 'grabbed two pairs of shoes, ran downstairs, and took flight', escaping into the countryside with its owners in barefoot pursuit. This is the first time the story - first published in a Polish newspaper in occupied France … Continue reading USBBY Outstanding International Book Pick: THE TABLE THAT RAN AWAY TO THE WOODS by Stefan Themerson
Winner of Asymptote Journal’s 2016 Close Approximations Translation Contest and Shortlisted for the Ryszard Kapuscinski Prize, History of a Disappearance is the fascinating true story of a small mining town in the southwest of Poland that, after seven centuries of history, disappeared. Lying at the crucible of Central Europe, the Silesian village of Kupferberg suffered … Continue reading Adult Title Pick: HISTORY OF A DISAPPEARANCE by Filip Springer
Poem without mystery O to be a lock-keeper in Żuławy on a non-essential branch of the canal, amid a flat landscape. Every day to ride a bike to a concrete cabin smaller than a news kiosk. To watch through a little square window the risings and settings of the sun. To have no idea about … Continue reading Excerpt: POSTS by Tadeusz Dąbrowski
Global Literature in Libraries Initiative 