1 00:00:00,630 --> 00:00:12,210 Very much. And at the heart of research, translating and writing about literature in this country. 2 00:00:12,780 --> 00:00:18,720 And it's not just the place on my left. 3 00:00:20,160 --> 00:00:32,240 And of course. If you I think one of the few places I mean, it's most if not universally familiar with that. 4 00:00:32,580 --> 00:00:40,360 But for those of you who are not, what do you think she was and that was the filibuster is an honorary research 5 00:00:40,360 --> 00:00:52,540 associate at UCLA School of Compensation Studies and she was a critic of literature. 6 00:00:52,750 --> 00:01:03,370 And also later, as writing with me, published on Crucifixion, was the 19th and 20th century century. 7 00:01:03,610 --> 00:01:17,110 That particular particular focus and interest is in this feminism writings by women and those who have spoken up, which is, of course, 8 00:01:17,110 --> 00:01:27,970 increase the range of individual needs of students and educate and inform other people, 9 00:01:28,690 --> 00:01:37,899 as well as some of the most recent innovations, for example, the 19th century. 10 00:01:37,900 --> 00:01:46,980 Right. And that's exactly how stuff that's not that's very well known and sometimes read as a sort of a feminist movement for the future. 11 00:01:47,400 --> 00:01:56,890 And because so much information is missing and is working to look at these books around 12 00:01:57,430 --> 00:02:11,230 and understand this is currently working on and also translations and also how to use it. 13 00:02:12,670 --> 00:02:32,230 But if we were to see some of the things which were not what you can say continue to look and very little has been translated basically material. 14 00:02:33,070 --> 00:02:42,550 And if you look at what's around you short sleeves and we probably didn't ask a question of 15 00:02:42,790 --> 00:02:52,960 anyone here us because I do have a bit and I will and I do like to put it to you at this point, 16 00:02:53,290 --> 00:03:01,389 so I think you've got it. Um, so my left is to my right. 17 00:03:01,390 --> 00:03:03,640 Um, Antonia, Lloyd, Judith. 18 00:03:04,480 --> 00:03:16,990 We know as well as everyone else that this complete lack of contemporary and modernity 20th century literature, food, climate data um, one finds that, 19 00:03:16,990 --> 00:03:27,090 um, the translation of both and is really very widely translated particularly to because 89 literature, all genres as it were, prose. 20 00:03:27,130 --> 00:03:39,100 Paper, well, poetry. Borowski The things reportage sort of it's of course going over the whole of literature, which is it's quite an interesting, 21 00:03:40,690 --> 00:03:50,059 a collection of essays by a medical doctor and the technique and biographical work and children's literature. 22 00:03:50,060 --> 00:03:54,190 And that takes us further back in time by the but of course with the famous 23 00:03:54,920 --> 00:04:02,470 talk about the scientist and other students in translation coming out soon. 24 00:04:02,800 --> 00:04:07,720 Um, to use this a lot of illustrations come out. 25 00:04:07,870 --> 00:04:16,080 Yes, it has already come out. Well, it's available through the Free New Zealand Cookbook kind of distribution here. 26 00:04:16,450 --> 00:04:28,450 Right. Um, and I'm also a mentor for the Centre for Nutrition, Patience and the Descent of Religion and Patients Mentorship program. 27 00:04:28,870 --> 00:04:36,089 Um. Crime prose as well. 28 00:04:36,090 --> 00:04:50,010 Detective Novel Novel Sequel is a very wide range of literature from which company has to take it into English. 29 00:04:50,010 --> 00:04:53,070 It makes sense to revisit this in this country. 30 00:04:54,420 --> 00:04:57,990 Our third speaker is George Gomery. 31 00:04:58,470 --> 00:05:03,870 Um, and again, you would be very familiar with the witnesses and his work. 32 00:05:04,380 --> 00:05:09,420 Hungarian born poet, writer, translator, literary scholar. 33 00:05:10,080 --> 00:05:22,680 And he taught published in Hungary literature for many years that position in the University of Cambridge. 34 00:05:23,300 --> 00:05:36,360 Um, among his many, um, merits and um, uh, awards is membership of the Polish Academy of Arts and Sciences in Vancouver, 35 00:05:36,990 --> 00:05:42,180 and which is widely written on Polish as well as in very literature. 36 00:05:42,570 --> 00:05:47,970 He is an accomplished poet itself, mainly in his native country language. 37 00:05:48,270 --> 00:05:58,830 But there are also contemplations, um, from the Hungarian into, into English and understanding composers as well, and vice versa. 38 00:05:59,760 --> 00:06:11,700 George also translated some of the best known 20th century Polish poets into Hungarian and into including Milos and of course, Helmut. 39 00:06:12,360 --> 00:06:25,470 Um, and it's his, um, new book that will be launched soon at the Turkish Embassy, The Polish Sworn Truth. 40 00:06:26,670 --> 00:06:34,740 It's a collection of essays focussed on transient essays on Polish and comparative literature. 41 00:06:35,280 --> 00:06:38,280 This very catchy title doesn't come from me. 42 00:06:38,730 --> 00:06:42,660 It comes from Isaac Watts, who describes it this way. 43 00:06:43,450 --> 00:06:48,720 Exactly. And the volume includes a wide range of a wide range of authors, 44 00:06:49,980 --> 00:06:56,879 which is really taking us from the Renaissance Karnofsky up to not including very interesting authors, 45 00:06:56,880 --> 00:07:03,120 such as, for example, the related authors of gifts to other Baroque authors, 46 00:07:03,120 --> 00:07:09,720 such as much to also other late Renaissance authors from the late 16th century since Alinsky. 47 00:07:09,960 --> 00:07:19,710 So this is altogether quite an exciting volume in addition to criticism. 48 00:07:20,100 --> 00:07:24,899 And so this is just the brief introduction of our three speakers. 49 00:07:24,900 --> 00:07:31,710 And of course it's not to be talking, but it's about having the opportunity to hear what and how to as speakers. 50 00:07:32,970 --> 00:07:41,190 And you can tell us about translating Polish literature before and after 1989, and perhaps I can invite you to talk, 51 00:07:42,000 --> 00:07:51,750 um, simply, uh, for sake of simplicity in the order as you appear on, on, on, on the program, as it were. 52 00:07:51,990 --> 00:08:00,560 So, Antonia, because you have a different ideas, you know, but you are happy with that. 53 00:08:00,570 --> 00:08:11,250 Yeah. Are you all happy with that. I don't know. That is and then George mentioned that, but I don't mind. 54 00:08:11,250 --> 00:08:16,390 I mean. Well, yes, well I don't like what mean. 55 00:08:16,830 --> 00:08:23,510 We could have decided on the 1989 yes or no because I'm sort of combining sort of two in a way. 56 00:08:23,640 --> 00:08:27,480 I think it's better if I'm an optimist. 57 00:08:27,810 --> 00:08:32,549 Yeah. So, yeah, yeah, absolutely. 58 00:08:32,550 --> 00:08:39,630 So how may I suggest this order the first and then let me let me keep myself. 59 00:08:41,370 --> 00:08:50,950 I'm not going to keep order. I don't know whether that one should be projected because. 60 00:08:51,630 --> 00:08:58,310 Because of helping. It's on here, so it's just switched it. 61 00:08:58,310 --> 00:09:12,680 So it's simply a list of anthologies of British literature translated into English from 1956 to 1989. 62 00:09:15,950 --> 00:09:23,600 And that is just to get rid of the right. 63 00:09:26,680 --> 00:09:40,600 Okay. Well, first of all, I would like to say a few words how foolishly became not exactly popular in England, but better known in England. 64 00:09:41,290 --> 00:09:52,269 This didn't happen right after the war. There was a very large number of POWs under somebody as we know them, most of them. 65 00:09:52,270 --> 00:10:02,499 But some came to England and many of of the foolish, like those British soldiers settled down both in Scotland and with England. 66 00:10:02,500 --> 00:10:12,010 Scotland. This interesting was of serious interest in physics. 67 00:10:14,680 --> 00:10:20,320 At least that was my impression, because before that you had very simple collections published by emigres. 68 00:10:20,590 --> 00:10:24,010 But they weren't important. They didn't reach the general public. 69 00:10:24,850 --> 00:10:32,770 And even the very first contemporary British stories was probably Santa Barbara and California. 70 00:10:33,550 --> 00:10:41,200 I don't think it hit the English market at all, you know what I mean? 71 00:10:41,440 --> 00:11:01,930 Maybe I was just some of the three periods which I'm going to talk about, one from 1956 through to 68, 68 in the late seventies and then after. 72 00:11:02,380 --> 00:11:10,420 And basically, this is a phonetic, phonetic division, because in the very first period, 73 00:11:10,720 --> 00:11:16,959 what interested the English reader or what was the interest in the English? 74 00:11:16,960 --> 00:11:20,080 And this was the reward experience in Poland, 75 00:11:21,040 --> 00:11:30,990 and that involved both the Polish underground fight of the British underground against the Germans and the Holocaust. 76 00:11:31,000 --> 00:11:41,440 And it's foolish. But anyway, what experience was what dominated the contemporary poetry? 77 00:11:41,440 --> 00:11:51,810 Short stories 160 and to some extent even the modern Polish modern of edited by Maria Savage in 1962. 78 00:11:53,620 --> 00:12:02,380 Here I would mention to many Mexicans, but I'm coming to the main players in the studio. 79 00:12:05,000 --> 00:12:07,180 On the issue of ski. 80 00:12:08,380 --> 00:12:25,400 Ski, we don't believe in conditions at which these four people, I think, were the most isolated and moved in the United States and in England. 81 00:12:25,400 --> 00:12:27,979 Because when you're speaking about this period, 82 00:12:27,980 --> 00:12:37,880 obviously various publications in the United States which didn't reach the sort of prudish place, which is probably much later in England. 83 00:12:38,180 --> 00:12:43,940 But already by the matter of 65, had a huge impact in America. 84 00:12:46,190 --> 00:12:55,040 So let's let me talk about the these four people very, very briefly. 85 00:12:55,730 --> 00:13:11,660 Of course. Yes. MGM Ski was known before the Second World War as a Catholic writer of existentialist leanings. 86 00:13:12,800 --> 00:13:17,760 I think he was very much anonymous in his very first two books. 87 00:13:17,810 --> 00:13:27,900 And then he became, as we know, after 1945, a very well regarded fellow traveller of the 32nd response. 88 00:13:30,710 --> 00:13:39,020 During this period, he wrote one book, Ashes and Diamonds, which became a huge bestseller all over the world, 89 00:13:40,160 --> 00:13:52,190 mainly because of the film, which was quickly, marvellously, which was soon, I think, in a different media, like a 58 certificate. 90 00:13:53,630 --> 00:14:04,010 So here I would have to say that the influence of this film on the reception of literature in England, in the other states was very significant. 91 00:14:04,490 --> 00:14:12,380 Very significant. Now Up All Ashes and Diamonds is published about penguins as early as 1962. 92 00:14:13,730 --> 00:14:22,700 But I knew David West from Sleep, and in fact I visited him once on a talk in Ann Arbour, Michigan, 93 00:14:23,420 --> 00:14:36,410 and enjoyed the hospitality of Welsh, who was bitterly complaining about diamonds because he said they cost too much out of the book. 94 00:14:38,060 --> 00:14:45,770 The publisher didn't want various details, which of course was English, so he wasn't very happy with it. 95 00:14:46,910 --> 00:14:53,240 But then he was on the board in Arbour and translated quite a lot. 96 00:14:55,820 --> 00:15:12,700 I think not really. I'm just I think he was a route to a TV series, a biography one was, which, you know, but it's not approximately September, 97 00:15:13,790 --> 00:15:25,790 never mind 600 objects you need to continued his his his popularity continued in England and 98 00:15:25,790 --> 00:15:35,629 in America although he didn't write anything which would have been made same impact as ashes. 99 00:15:35,630 --> 00:15:43,070 And then I don't want to go into analysis because that would be just very far on the right. 100 00:15:43,070 --> 00:15:48,980 People thought he was too pro-communist. It wasn't enough communism. 101 00:15:49,070 --> 00:15:50,930 It was a controversial book. 102 00:15:50,930 --> 00:16:02,940 Anyway, the film was excellent because there's a lot of bad material cut Scotland and by the make it one of the best versions. 103 00:16:04,910 --> 00:16:09,340 That is one of those Barofsky and those who never heard of him. 104 00:16:10,220 --> 00:16:19,520 But I for the readers, yes, he was an inmate in Auschwitz or she a Jim. 105 00:16:21,560 --> 00:16:26,600 And he described his experiences in a sort of deadpan manner. 106 00:16:28,470 --> 00:16:38,090 Not it wasn't exactly a naturalist, but as if in the style a bit of Hemingway, I don't know. 107 00:16:38,330 --> 00:16:47,210 But he was very, very, very laconic in his description of the concentration camp. 108 00:16:47,360 --> 00:17:00,679 And also he tried to tell people that normal human ethics and morality broke down completely in the camps. 109 00:17:00,680 --> 00:17:14,620 And that's why his. Testimony of the camps became symbols of what was also stated in the this 1976 border letter. 110 00:17:16,420 --> 00:17:25,090 And, of course, he was missing from the history of, you know, what happens in 1996. 111 00:17:26,920 --> 00:17:31,639 Okay. Today's. He was the first coach, 112 00:17:31,640 --> 00:17:48,250 but I met a very young person because very few people knew this before moving from Leeds at the time spent as a scholarship there in Hungary. 113 00:17:49,630 --> 00:17:54,220 So I met him back in 1952 or 53. 114 00:17:54,820 --> 00:18:08,470 I was a very young beginner and done a mistake of inviting me when I am in Poland in that year on the scholarship. 115 00:18:08,890 --> 00:18:17,760 And they said, Well, why did you come into politics? So I spent basically with the resistance and I've been corresponding since. 116 00:18:17,890 --> 00:18:35,810 Now his popularity is due to an attempt rescue me, who otherwise is a modern, easy person to give me head injuries. 117 00:18:36,370 --> 00:18:41,770 Right. But for you, you really did a very good job and translated excellently, 118 00:18:42,100 --> 00:18:52,720 is watching this place because of some very good plays, I think sixties, seventies. 119 00:18:53,980 --> 00:18:58,300 And he's really one of the still living blues classics. 120 00:19:01,570 --> 00:19:09,060 And later on, he edited Definitely Some to Rescue the Anthology of British, 121 00:19:09,070 --> 00:19:19,900 both because when they first then but then it gets further and further down the route. 122 00:19:20,260 --> 00:19:28,780 And then I think, okay, but that is not a complete anthology of British poetry. 123 00:19:29,040 --> 00:19:35,050 It's very much a selection which reflects his own taste. 124 00:19:39,400 --> 00:19:44,290 Now you don't see, Well, he's a very good book. 125 00:19:44,530 --> 00:19:48,820 He was a very good. But unfortunately, he no longer with us. 126 00:19:50,530 --> 00:19:55,780 But his most memorable Bruce is a memoir of the Warsaw Uprising. 127 00:19:57,490 --> 00:20:02,580 It's an extraordinary book. I recommend anyone can be Polish during the original. 128 00:20:04,010 --> 00:20:11,440 He's he's one of the very credible witnesses of the uprising. 129 00:20:11,440 --> 00:20:14,460 How the civilian population. Excuse me. 130 00:20:16,810 --> 00:20:23,320 Let's talk about it. This has before it was translated into English in 1977. 131 00:20:24,370 --> 00:20:27,700 And Oliver. Okay. Okay. 132 00:20:28,000 --> 00:20:32,649 These are good experiences. Now, what really made a huge difference. 133 00:20:32,650 --> 00:20:35,820 That was 1956. 134 00:20:36,160 --> 00:20:45,110 Actually, two days, March the fifth. I usually remember this day with some glee because this is date and seven story story. 135 00:20:46,900 --> 00:20:55,270 And that was the beginning of the fall, which started in different countries in different times. 136 00:20:56,370 --> 00:21:01,899 The Island Book coined the phrase The fall are stolen. 137 00:21:01,900 --> 00:21:12,850 This free belting out, I think, melting down to a more acceptable form of communism. 138 00:21:13,720 --> 00:21:20,470 Who knows? Anyway, what happened in Poland between 54 and 56. 139 00:21:20,890 --> 00:21:29,260 The Polish to produce a large amount of literature suddenly became interesting for the English reader. 140 00:21:30,090 --> 00:21:44,710 And there is one book which was an anthology which I didn't put up because of that, and that is Cold Winter Harvest, published by Krieger York, 1959. 141 00:21:45,910 --> 00:21:53,020 Now, that is an opportunistic anthology, in a sense, because it produces all the most interesting writing of the fall. 142 00:21:54,280 --> 00:21:57,710 So you think it's a medical school student? 143 00:21:57,720 --> 00:22:02,440 Don't do a substantive one. Okay, let's just go across these two essays. 144 00:22:03,040 --> 00:22:06,450 But it has. Adam Marshall. Very important. 145 00:22:07,380 --> 00:22:16,860 Very important for my literacy. That was like an earthquake in Poland in 1955 when my brother came out. 146 00:22:17,400 --> 00:22:27,180 I can witness that because we will pass the time sensitivity to Hungary and this new group to the university at the time. 147 00:22:27,570 --> 00:22:33,240 Unbelievable. Now, Russia is an interesting person who was a surrealist before the war. 148 00:22:33,480 --> 00:22:47,760 Then he went through and he escaped to Russia, became an officer, political officer of the burning army, Christian School Fusion, not very popular. 149 00:22:50,100 --> 00:22:55,410 And nobody liked him to tell truth because he was. 150 00:22:56,730 --> 00:23:05,100 He enjoyed the spotlight. But then, after this long something, he began to understand the system. 151 00:23:05,100 --> 00:23:17,730 And root is known for policy one for adults, which was the first frontal attack on Socialist Musical. 152 00:23:19,290 --> 00:23:37,470 So in the second period, which goes on 68, even further down, so that is he met a large number of people who suddenly become interested. 153 00:23:38,040 --> 00:23:48,900 And these include medical school. Well, very funny black realists, medical school who died very young, 154 00:23:50,280 --> 00:23:58,079 but he emigrated from Poland or escaped from emigrated rather than age when his he 155 00:23:58,080 --> 00:24:07,320 made a film with a West German production and fell in love with this leading actress. 156 00:24:07,900 --> 00:24:12,720 So I think so, among other studios. 157 00:24:14,340 --> 00:24:27,080 Anyway, my request was an extraordinary character because he somehow managed to write a kind of almost surreal surrealist naturalistic prose. 158 00:24:28,200 --> 00:24:31,560 And some of his short stories are excellent. 159 00:24:32,550 --> 00:24:35,550 His autobiography is very funny. 160 00:24:36,420 --> 00:24:41,250 Very funny, except I do not I wouldn't translate it just because. 161 00:24:42,090 --> 00:24:47,210 Yes, it's just published by Michael Roth of The New York Mirror. 162 00:24:47,760 --> 00:24:51,390 And it's just come out and it's well, anyway, 163 00:24:52,380 --> 00:24:59,400 one of the few people of that generation I never met but exchange letters in which 164 00:25:00,330 --> 00:25:09,060 mother was who was rather characteristically asking for some piece of this population. 165 00:25:10,590 --> 00:25:20,880 Okay. But other people who I knew rather well and who made a huge career in English speaking were speaking of her. 166 00:25:23,310 --> 00:25:32,000 I had the distinction of having invited her back first to Oxford, United 59 that I wrote this. 167 00:25:32,040 --> 00:25:40,920 Yes. You go and said to this here is this approaches you amongst others. 168 00:25:43,890 --> 00:25:54,350 He wrote a kind of poetry which was again, I didn't I'm not here to analyse the. 169 00:25:54,430 --> 00:26:03,810 But you just see that the classical tradition and modernism was combined in Herbert's verse, 170 00:26:04,140 --> 00:26:13,410 which is usually on the writings of the radical left and which translates extremely, very Jewish. 171 00:26:14,730 --> 00:26:21,990 So he became really a star of the Jewish literature. 172 00:26:23,670 --> 00:26:32,069 Let's go back up, put them to sleep, because me was delicious. 173 00:26:32,070 --> 00:26:40,110 And thanks to viewers of Anthology 65 and of which just of himself is a major presence. 174 00:26:41,400 --> 00:26:53,010 And strangely enough, he becomes he is the one who is also whose career in the works starts with before but in a different way. 175 00:26:53,190 --> 00:27:03,660 Not in Poland, but by like a couple of months writing, which comes out at the very before the film begins in Poland and has an enormous impact. 176 00:27:05,060 --> 00:27:11,540 Copies of these, including milkshakes, have been considered have been made major work of his. 177 00:27:11,990 --> 00:27:22,790 He wrote it because at that time he both needed money and to justify why he didn't solve the catalogue of communism. 178 00:27:24,500 --> 00:27:29,330 But it's a book which is worth reading today. 179 00:27:29,840 --> 00:27:36,500 In some ways it's more it explains more than Custer's Darkness self-discipline, which it agrees with, 180 00:27:37,790 --> 00:27:52,460 but of a very specific because it tells only about how the old Bolsheviks went through the process of basically suicide for the sake of the party. 181 00:27:52,580 --> 00:27:58,310 Whereas New was from that point and its point of ultimate form. 182 00:27:59,000 --> 00:28:07,910 Describe the ways in which communism was swallowed by this alphabet the government goes over. 183 00:28:09,860 --> 00:28:19,130 Well, again, I don't want to discuss just years and it can be broken most often a lot about him. 184 00:28:20,030 --> 00:28:26,480 But his first book, which really made an impact in the West. 185 00:28:26,810 --> 00:28:33,830 I thought to get through mind that this was an anthology which he tried seeking and he was very 186 00:28:33,830 --> 00:28:43,460 fat because he could stand superset or I think he included one letter much less of course. 187 00:28:44,800 --> 00:28:47,810 Excuse I again, I do that to introduce him. 188 00:28:48,200 --> 00:28:52,910 He becomes the the philosopher of the school, 189 00:28:53,390 --> 00:29:01,600 the philosopher of all of that period in which people in Poland thought, Well, maybe we could reform communist. 190 00:29:01,850 --> 00:29:13,830 If we could modernise it, we could. Well, and it was obviously the 1968 said at that conference in Moscow. 191 00:29:14,450 --> 00:29:19,870 He wrote in several revisions. 192 00:29:19,880 --> 00:29:27,340 His speech suggested that this is no longer an issue that he was writing. 193 00:29:28,880 --> 00:29:32,780 Well, he wrote an enormous amount afterwards. 194 00:29:33,470 --> 00:29:40,580 And I still think responsibility and history, which is his essay back in 1956, 195 00:29:40,580 --> 00:29:53,240 is should be a must read for anyone interested in the history, not of what it was another person who became popular in Russia. 196 00:29:53,750 --> 00:29:57,860 I mean, of course, the short stories with his place later on. 197 00:30:00,200 --> 00:30:08,060 The problem is you see that he had so much to do with it, but no more. 198 00:30:08,450 --> 00:30:17,840 But I could talk about the subject of it now. Mrozek Of course, that was interesting. 199 00:30:18,290 --> 00:30:27,440 In the early period he was known better for swing and the short stories which you know, 200 00:30:28,490 --> 00:30:34,790 were again, well representing the Polish episode or the East European episode. 201 00:30:36,020 --> 00:30:45,350 Who knows? But they were little stories that usually twist or the very beginning twist. 202 00:30:46,940 --> 00:30:52,440 I particularly remember the one of the Swan, the elephant, which is mean the end of the world, 203 00:30:55,130 --> 00:31:07,760 which is basically all sorts of propaganda and then escapes defeat because there is no of course there isn't. 204 00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:14,210 Well, the third period, which is basically the post revisionist period, 205 00:31:15,320 --> 00:31:23,610 is when some of the greats of British literature come into fashion and are translated. 206 00:31:26,420 --> 00:31:37,820 I think the video showed up translated in 63, but it's really popularity starts sometime in the eighties. 207 00:31:38,370 --> 00:31:49,210 It must be redone now, is it? I'm sure gombrowicz because of lots of stories. 208 00:31:49,220 --> 00:31:59,990 About course, he was translated into English in the sixties, but nobody knew any movies in Germany and France. 209 00:31:59,990 --> 00:32:12,050 He was very popular. So in 1967 we got the French fries basically post and it was the times, you know, to ask for an opinion. 210 00:32:12,140 --> 00:32:22,310 It was longer. So they sent me up. I was working in Birmingham in the Russian Historical Centre in the Falklands. 211 00:32:25,160 --> 00:32:27,319 Who is this number? But I said if it worked, 212 00:32:27,320 --> 00:32:35,450 it was created in the Times and there was four letters from me that say I do not believe that is a common Georgian order in Berlin. 213 00:32:35,450 --> 00:32:39,570 Who knows about numbers? Who is this man anyway? He's invented. 214 00:32:41,840 --> 00:32:48,950 But you see, gombrowicz. The funny thing about it is that he's too some. 215 00:32:49,160 --> 00:32:55,960 Somehow he's too European for an English reader. 216 00:32:57,740 --> 00:33:03,310 Nothing very foolish in some ways, and very sort of continental like. 217 00:33:03,360 --> 00:33:16,009 I'm very excited that if you live in South America for many years but in the seventies and it is certainly good 218 00:33:16,010 --> 00:33:21,470 translation of it because the first one anyway and it was like every subsequent from the French and German. 219 00:33:21,770 --> 00:33:26,330 So he's lousy with it. But then somebody had something to say. 220 00:33:26,900 --> 00:33:32,060 I can't remember because there is several now. 221 00:33:33,230 --> 00:33:36,830 But. And you would do so. 222 00:33:36,830 --> 00:33:52,340 No. Now I'm coming to the end of my somewhat go and another name I have to mention Visconti, since I believe that to be true, became very popular. 223 00:33:52,340 --> 00:34:04,430 Not so much in England as in American California if your children loved the beach, but it was absurd enough for them and funny, you know, for them. 224 00:34:04,880 --> 00:34:07,490 And again, to translate it. 225 00:34:07,490 --> 00:34:22,640 And I think most of his important plays and he was performed in California from 1966 onwards and published several books, and that's it. 226 00:34:23,180 --> 00:34:32,059 I'm sorry. I couldn't even do justice to a number of things, which I couldn't agree with that which I admitted. 227 00:34:32,060 --> 00:34:44,480 There used to be a number of cycles in the and the tumult new writing of East Europe and also I think it was George Dryden in 1971. 228 00:34:45,470 --> 00:34:53,660 And Davia, thanks very much. I think that provides a very nice background and searching for something that 229 00:34:54,920 --> 00:34:59,860 reminded me of a million things that I have forgotten this remote village. 230 00:35:00,230 --> 00:35:09,540 Can I just gently close this and I've got some pretty pictures for you and. 231 00:35:14,060 --> 00:35:22,930 Just so I can hear. And Kathy. 232 00:35:30,370 --> 00:35:35,650 This computer is happy with it. Rather than putting lists of titles that discover pictures. 233 00:35:35,920 --> 00:35:47,170 If if I can make them appear. Does it mean that you don't want better promises here? 234 00:35:47,170 --> 00:35:52,120 Will you do this machine? 235 00:35:52,120 --> 00:35:57,190 Do your thing? So we have this completely unfamiliar computer. 236 00:35:57,200 --> 00:36:02,020 I think it's ideal to do for. Probably. 237 00:36:02,360 --> 00:36:05,360 Probably. Right click. Right click on it. 238 00:36:07,200 --> 00:36:11,450 Oh, I've done that. Oh. 239 00:36:15,060 --> 00:36:20,460 Since we caught frozen. Sorry about this minor technical hitch. 240 00:36:23,580 --> 00:36:27,040 Do you know what to do to try it? 241 00:36:30,130 --> 00:36:35,280 Yeah, it's there. Sorry. Let's try opening up. 242 00:36:35,490 --> 00:36:38,600 Yes. Oh, yeah. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. 243 00:36:38,850 --> 00:36:47,300 All right, we open this. All right. No, I think it's a problem. 244 00:36:47,310 --> 00:36:50,560 And partly it seems to be the point. 245 00:36:50,650 --> 00:36:53,940 Yes. And that's my thing. Oh, okay. 246 00:36:53,940 --> 00:36:56,960 We are right. Right. Okay. All right. 247 00:36:56,980 --> 00:37:02,920 So just go to the full screen. Oh, no, no, no. 248 00:37:03,160 --> 00:37:08,140 Don't know what to do to show the scene properly from beginning. 249 00:37:08,760 --> 00:37:15,870 Right. But I don't want it to go flying through or and just to stop there. 250 00:37:15,880 --> 00:37:23,440 Okay. All right. So let me that for you. So I've heard of you know, it's mentioned in the title. 251 00:37:23,440 --> 00:37:25,650 I thought I would talk. I've mentioned that. 252 00:37:27,370 --> 00:37:33,430 And what I'm really just going to show you is what sort of things get translated and published in English, 253 00:37:34,420 --> 00:37:37,920 because obviously there are certain forces at work here. 254 00:37:37,960 --> 00:37:43,000 Markets and things like that. It really Polish literature. 255 00:37:44,170 --> 00:37:49,899 There's got to be more Polish literature in English, the contemporary stuff from 2000 onwards. 256 00:37:49,900 --> 00:38:00,790 But Pavel was one of the writers who was there earlier with who was David Fleischer, which I translated, and that came out in 1996, 89, 90. 257 00:38:02,230 --> 00:38:13,630 And also, he's useful for showing how things have changed in terms of how a book comes to get translated into English in the first place. 258 00:38:14,260 --> 00:38:27,670 So what George would say in the past, books got into English because of academic initiatives, people who were experts, 259 00:38:28,150 --> 00:38:38,230 often with quite with academic publishers or in journals or in fairly kind of not mainstream publishers. 260 00:38:38,770 --> 00:38:42,550 And what an awful lot has changed in the last 20 years. 261 00:38:42,610 --> 00:38:46,269 So that now Polish literature is appearing not exactly with mainstream publishers, 262 00:38:46,270 --> 00:38:53,319 but as something that's generally available and more widely known about not just those, 263 00:38:53,320 --> 00:38:56,830 but still have this strange quirk reading, East European literature. 264 00:38:57,590 --> 00:39:08,559 And so how David Weiss it got into English was a sort of accident because there was one who Michael Thomas Pirie, 265 00:39:08,560 --> 00:39:12,630 who was an academic in Glasgow, who died tragically young. 266 00:39:12,640 --> 00:39:22,270 Otherwise he would be doing great things and he just was incredibly active and he organised in 1988, 267 00:39:22,570 --> 00:39:28,450 which is quite a time to be doing a Polish cultural event in Glasgow where he got all 268 00:39:28,450 --> 00:39:34,329 sorts of people a long night to get them out of Poland and including some writers. 269 00:39:34,330 --> 00:39:39,520 And he got Ronny, some of my the poet Pablo Miller and Anthony LeBaron came over to teach about their work. 270 00:39:39,940 --> 00:39:51,700 I mean, it was amazing that they could get passports and they were tormented by the immigration police on the way out of the country. 271 00:39:51,760 --> 00:39:58,270 And it was these were historic times. And so I met Pablo at this event, and I was with Daniel Tarkovsky, 272 00:39:58,270 --> 00:40:07,610 who at the time was a valiant fighter for Right, was running police publications in London and Pavel. 273 00:40:07,660 --> 00:40:11,890 It just published like that, which was very successful in Poland. 274 00:40:12,490 --> 00:40:18,400 And I was interested in translating, had done a bit for Russian, but wasn't very experienced. 275 00:40:19,060 --> 00:40:26,860 And we just teamed up and I had been doing some work with Michael Glennie, who was very well established translator of Russian, 276 00:40:27,370 --> 00:40:31,540 and he helped me and showed me how to prepare material to show publishers. 277 00:40:31,540 --> 00:40:34,600 He then chatted up Liz Calder at Bloomsbury. 278 00:40:35,350 --> 00:40:41,280 And so by a sequence of accidents of the right people with the right interest coming together. 279 00:40:41,290 --> 00:40:49,000 This book was published in English, a book by a young Polish writer, completely unknown in in Britain. 280 00:40:49,300 --> 00:40:53,230 And things were starting to change, not just in Poland, but also here, 281 00:40:53,230 --> 00:41:03,310 because a great deal was also happening in in this country and in America in the last 20 years to put translation much more firmly on the map. 282 00:41:03,600 --> 00:41:10,900 And there's an awful lot more respect for translated literature, there's a lot more translated training. 283 00:41:11,020 --> 00:41:17,680 And I think the whole idea of reading foreign literature, although I wish more people read it, 284 00:41:18,490 --> 00:41:28,900 that's a much better attitude generally to the whole idea of translation in an English language speaking country, which is also help. 285 00:41:29,440 --> 00:41:32,910 So if so, that's a capitalist title. 286 00:41:32,930 --> 00:41:38,440 But if I show you I've done this by genre, I'm not really a poetry translator. 287 00:41:38,440 --> 00:41:40,600 I've done one poet who bullies me into it. 288 00:41:40,610 --> 00:41:45,970 Basically it to sort have raised me up at four in the morning and complains about where commas should go and things like that. 289 00:41:46,480 --> 00:41:57,310 So but here is a fairly nice selection of some of the things that have happened in Polish poetry in the last 15 years. 290 00:41:57,760 --> 00:42:00,310 But it's the usual suspects. So for it's. 291 00:42:00,480 --> 00:42:07,200 It's that sort of V-shape that's of Chevron of books that all the same publisher, which is Zephyr Press in Boston. 292 00:42:08,000 --> 00:42:16,080 They've done fantastic things. And a lot of that is to do with certain very dedicated translators, the l.a. 293 00:42:16,390 --> 00:42:23,670 Chiclets who's done the anthology on the record on Everest and she did the Martian a killer book sort Monica. 294 00:42:24,270 --> 00:42:28,130 And then Bill Johnston who's done patrician Dickey. 295 00:42:28,950 --> 00:42:35,519 I would say people think I'm sneezy and I say that name and who also was behind mirror wrote and 12 translations 296 00:42:35,520 --> 00:42:43,680 of Roget's ski who think to my mind is the greatest living Polish poet and one of the greatest poets ever. 297 00:42:44,070 --> 00:42:48,090 And so, for instance, this isn't everything. This is just the selection. 298 00:42:48,090 --> 00:42:52,380 So the publicity is the latest work translated by the actor. 299 00:42:52,620 --> 00:43:00,509 And then ARC, which is a very small, dedicated British publisher who does mostly anthologies. 300 00:43:00,510 --> 00:43:04,139 And they did this six Polish edited. 301 00:43:04,140 --> 00:43:09,000 And then today Puro and Rod Mangum did the altered state for them. 302 00:43:09,300 --> 00:43:12,870 And then they've just done the Christine and they were banter, which is also elevated. 303 00:43:13,290 --> 00:43:19,829 And then Phil Johnston gets to trade on the patch of attention yet very, 304 00:43:19,830 --> 00:43:26,790 very quickly and publish a I would highly recommend this archipelago books review of epic. 305 00:43:27,870 --> 00:43:34,229 So in poetry there's a lot happening with the younger poets now coming out and a lot 306 00:43:34,230 --> 00:43:42,300 of this is down to one or two dedicated publishers and some dedicated translators. 307 00:43:42,900 --> 00:43:47,100 So then looking at the fiction, this is just the selection. 308 00:43:47,100 --> 00:43:56,339 Again, you've got Will Johnston has kind of got a publisher to listen to him very carefully. 309 00:43:56,340 --> 00:44:00,540 So he's got all these tools out and mission is now in English. 310 00:44:00,870 --> 00:44:05,700 The latest one is a treatise on jelly beans, which I highly recommend with superb translation. 311 00:44:06,960 --> 00:44:20,970 And then there's more and more small independent publishers taking up Polish literature, but it's still really small independents. 312 00:44:21,180 --> 00:44:29,520 It's not mainstream publishers. So what we see here is that the the market is very specific. 313 00:44:29,520 --> 00:44:34,950 And you mentioned Telekom Group, which is too European, I would say, to Central Europe. 314 00:44:35,880 --> 00:44:42,480 And there is a bit of a cut off with the perceptions of the Anglo-Saxon when it comes to foreign literature, 315 00:44:42,570 --> 00:44:45,600 if it's a place where they go on holidays and they're happy with it. 316 00:44:45,610 --> 00:44:54,660 So if it's Italy or Spanish speaking or French or German, it kind of figures on their radar. 317 00:44:55,020 --> 00:45:03,330 But somehow one of the about the fault lines across Europe, for one of them, it affects what people read. 318 00:45:03,600 --> 00:45:08,550 And unfortunately, Russia gets across the principal classic Russian literature. 319 00:45:09,030 --> 00:45:15,930 But Poland is somewhere in this strange ghetto of of places we don't quite go to. 320 00:45:16,170 --> 00:45:26,610 We kind of know about, but not quite. So it is very, very uphill work to get people to take a major interest in Polish books, 321 00:45:26,610 --> 00:45:35,170 which is why it's so hard to persuade publishers because obviously publishers, a business people, they're not doing it just for fun. 322 00:45:35,190 --> 00:45:39,299 They have to make a living. So they are only going to publish this. 323 00:45:39,300 --> 00:45:40,470 They know they can sell. 324 00:45:40,890 --> 00:45:50,970 And so when Polish publishers and translators are pitching books to them, it's very important for them to decide to choose very carefully. 325 00:45:51,570 --> 00:46:01,590 And sometimes Polish publishers don't understand why certain books just don't take off in Britain or why nobody here is interested in them. 326 00:46:02,130 --> 00:46:10,590 And a lot of Polish interest does very well in German. But clearly there's some cultural reference for Germans. 327 00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:19,560 They find it more familiar, whereas for Anglo-Saxon somehow there is some difficulty here. 328 00:46:20,280 --> 00:46:26,890 But anyway, there's, there is a lot happening and there is a lot of there are a lot of wonderful books coming out. 329 00:46:26,920 --> 00:46:31,800 So just to give you an idea of the range, this is, there's more and more genre fiction now. 330 00:46:32,040 --> 00:46:41,639 I mean, some people would be offended to be put in the category of extraordinary fiction thing, but these are crime books and then there's fantasy. 331 00:46:41,640 --> 00:46:44,640 There's also some stuff I haven't bothered to mention. 332 00:46:44,640 --> 00:46:48,510 The great wrecks like my poetry didn't have to scare me. 333 00:46:48,510 --> 00:46:52,559 What is there of this? And I'm here. I haven't got land rights. 334 00:46:52,560 --> 00:47:00,100 That's huge. Continues to be very successful and and was successful in before that although he was often translated. 335 00:47:01,630 --> 00:47:04,720 And then this this thing on the top, right? It's appalling. 336 00:47:04,730 --> 00:47:11,170 Thing is the graphic novel, which there are better ones than that coming out to post it. 337 00:47:11,170 --> 00:47:18,310 It's quite amusing. And then to the question of these gory crime books, which I'm afraid I'm responsible for a couple of that. 338 00:47:19,960 --> 00:47:25,900 So but it's very interesting, you you take this book, A Grain of Truth, with how that came to be published in English. 339 00:47:26,230 --> 00:47:29,889 This is a much more typical example of what happens nowadays, 340 00:47:29,890 --> 00:47:38,110 because the roles have developed for the translator and particularly for the Polish publisher. 341 00:47:38,110 --> 00:47:46,390 So for instance, whereas in the past, Polish publishers really had nothing to do with what books got published in translation. 342 00:47:46,720 --> 00:47:57,460 Now the Polish publishers are extremely active in selling the rights to their books, so they Polish writers don't have agents. 343 00:47:57,580 --> 00:48:06,280 There isn't really enough money around for that. They're all this one very active agent sequel Polish rights run by women who make it. 344 00:48:06,280 --> 00:48:17,200 And Fosca, who represents several of the major Polish publishers, including Germany and but mostly the publishers, 345 00:48:17,200 --> 00:48:24,790 have dedicated foreign rights departments and they put together information to try to promote their books abroad. 346 00:48:24,790 --> 00:48:33,040 And they go to all the book fairs, including it for the English language, obviously, London and BookExpo America. 347 00:48:33,850 --> 00:48:39,580 And that it's been Frankfurt, of course, it's a major international rights selling market. 348 00:48:40,270 --> 00:48:44,079 And they promote their books and they work very closely with people like me, 349 00:48:44,080 --> 00:48:48,970 translators who can help them to prepare material to show Western publishers. 350 00:48:49,390 --> 00:48:55,750 And I remember when they first started doing this, they were bombarding every Western publisher with all the books they had. 351 00:48:55,990 --> 00:49:00,430 And I was saying, you know, you've got to target things. You have to think about the market here. 352 00:49:00,430 --> 00:49:07,120 Think about what that publisher, what each British publisher publishes and only show the things that they're likely to be interested in. 353 00:49:07,330 --> 00:49:08,860 Because every Western publisher, 354 00:49:09,340 --> 00:49:16,390 every publisher knows their lists and what they're about and they know very quickly if they're interested in the book or not. 355 00:49:16,900 --> 00:49:22,270 So you have to not bombard them, but tailor things to them. 356 00:49:23,350 --> 00:49:33,190 So with the grain of truth, what happened was it was an interesting process because the Polish publisher had sent information to British publishers, 357 00:49:33,190 --> 00:49:39,549 including Peter Lemon, who specialise in the US foreign crime books only. 358 00:49:39,550 --> 00:49:43,240 That's all they publish and they only do about eight books a year. 359 00:49:43,240 --> 00:49:48,879 They've just had their 10th anniversary and they're very successful and they 360 00:49:48,880 --> 00:49:52,720 had been told about various Polish books by more than one Polish publisher. 361 00:49:53,050 --> 00:49:58,740 So they approached me as somebody who could read those books for them and they said, Can you please tell us all of this? 362 00:49:58,740 --> 00:50:04,870 Because it's this Mrs. our brief is this this. Can you tell us if any of these books fit the bill? 363 00:50:04,870 --> 00:50:06,520 Which ones should we be interested? 364 00:50:06,730 --> 00:50:17,139 And I read one didn't get through all of that, a stack of books and these seem to me exactly in the right mould for them. 365 00:50:17,140 --> 00:50:23,380 So I said, This is what you want. And with the first one, they still wanted to read it in German before they published it. 366 00:50:23,830 --> 00:50:29,200 But then the second one, they were happy to just take my word for it. And now they're going to do a search, the author's writing now. 367 00:50:29,680 --> 00:50:35,049 So it's a different process now. So then we move. 368 00:50:35,050 --> 00:50:43,570 Oh, okay. So Polish reportage is really taking off now because personally I think it's one of the 369 00:50:43,570 --> 00:50:49,900 strongest areas of Polish contemporary publishing that does have a market in the way. 370 00:50:50,110 --> 00:50:54,790 This is an awful lot of novels coming out in Poland, which are you were saying that it's not about the war. 371 00:50:55,150 --> 00:51:00,549 Everything's still very Poland centric and there's still obviously a need in 372 00:51:00,550 --> 00:51:05,740 Poland's part because of the restrictions on culture in the communist era, 373 00:51:06,040 --> 00:51:10,620 there's still a need for an awful lot of expression of what's happened in Poland 374 00:51:10,630 --> 00:51:14,710 in a need to understand that which is coming out in the literature still. 375 00:51:15,130 --> 00:51:15,730 But of course, 376 00:51:15,730 --> 00:51:29,650 all of that doesn't really travel and it's of great interest to Poles and maybe people in Central Europe and Germany seems to take that. 377 00:51:30,250 --> 00:51:38,650 But less of a sell off when it comes to the markets in Britain and America where people are used to a different kind of book. 378 00:51:38,860 --> 00:51:43,270 Yes, copper shoots the eye again. He's such a classic, but I haven't put him in. 379 00:51:43,690 --> 00:51:52,390 But he is. He's the kind of father of all these writers and they've all come out of his school. 380 00:51:52,630 --> 00:51:56,740 And of course, he's massively important. 381 00:51:56,860 --> 00:52:00,190 Imperialist fantasy. Yes, it's fabulous all. 382 00:52:00,230 --> 00:52:08,840 His books have been just about everything. Not the older ones about Poland, but everything else that's been translated into English successfully. 383 00:52:08,850 --> 00:52:17,180 So thanks to him. That's another thing because he had good attention earlier and became an international figure. 384 00:52:17,870 --> 00:52:24,620 It's given all of these people a slightly easier ride, but it's also that they're not writing about Poland. 385 00:52:25,430 --> 00:52:32,070 Sad as it may seem, they're writing about other places. So we've got three books up there about Russia. 386 00:52:32,080 --> 00:52:42,140 Well, Chechnya for about Uganda, about Bosnia, about the Czechs as a nation, about Turkey, for instance. 387 00:52:42,950 --> 00:52:47,510 That's just those are just examples. Then I've got the two newest. 388 00:52:47,780 --> 00:52:57,380 Just the opposite corners. They're just about to come out. So then I wish this category was bigger. 389 00:52:57,410 --> 00:53:02,719 I mean, there's probably things that I haven't thought of, so certainly. 390 00:53:02,720 --> 00:53:08,540 SULLIVAN Hurry up. So anyway, there's some essays and biography happening. 391 00:53:09,560 --> 00:53:16,370 Again, the Catholic Church is an interesting how that came about because in this case, again, the publisher approached me. 392 00:53:16,370 --> 00:53:20,180 Several publishers approached me to write reports for them. They all got the same one. 393 00:53:21,650 --> 00:53:28,290 And, well, it's a big book. And then eventually some of them were interested in it, some of them less so. 394 00:53:28,310 --> 00:53:38,090 Certainly I did. And the guilty party and then children's books, just this is really the newest thing that's really starting to take off. 395 00:53:38,090 --> 00:53:42,290 I'm very proud that I translated this, which is really medieval for maps. 396 00:53:44,240 --> 00:53:51,260 And then some of these are older writers like Yanukovich, obviously, and Tufan and Korczak. 397 00:53:51,680 --> 00:53:54,559 So there's some interest in the older books, but these are very new. 398 00:53:54,560 --> 00:54:01,520 These are the mission landscape books, which are very popular in Poland, and these have been very successful internationally. 399 00:54:01,520 --> 00:54:06,260 The map is a hugely successful book. So that's very nice to see happening. 400 00:54:06,380 --> 00:54:10,100 And then I just wanted to say sorry, rambling on and using a futon. 401 00:54:10,370 --> 00:54:13,800 But so things have happened in Polish publishers publishing. 402 00:54:14,930 --> 00:54:18,290 Polish publishers now have this new role of selling rights. 403 00:54:18,530 --> 00:54:23,299 Translators help them. But then also importantly, the Poles. 404 00:54:23,300 --> 00:54:28,520 The Polish state has done a great deal towards this. And this is well, let's say the Polish Book Institute, 405 00:54:28,520 --> 00:54:37,520 which is in Krakow and is the most fantastic organisation that exists to promote Polish its report. 406 00:54:37,670 --> 00:54:40,700 And we started it basically in the year 2000. 407 00:54:40,820 --> 00:54:45,620 And so they have various programs which encourage translators and publishers. 408 00:54:45,620 --> 00:54:51,830 So the Copyright Poland program publishers can apply to that for funding to pay for rights and translation. 409 00:54:52,370 --> 00:54:58,939 Pub translators can apply for money to pay for extracts that they translate to use. 410 00:54:58,940 --> 00:55:06,380 When they're pitching books to publishers, they organise a huge every four years what they call a Congress. 411 00:55:06,680 --> 00:55:14,810 20 works to maybe ten to build, but it gets together translators from all over the world, from every possible language. 412 00:55:15,020 --> 00:55:20,570 I didn't know there was a Vietnamese camp, which I think is really makes pretty good of the polish. 413 00:55:22,010 --> 00:55:29,450 And then and then they have also seminar events where they get translators to come in and meet Polish translators. 414 00:55:29,840 --> 00:55:38,300 They have residences for translators. They produce catalogues featuring new books that have just come out in Poland with extracts in them. 415 00:55:38,480 --> 00:55:43,549 They go to the only international books as Poland's just been the in Delhi at the New Delhi books. 416 00:55:43,550 --> 00:55:50,230 So the whole set of writers went inside and got some publicity and then they have a very good website. 417 00:55:50,230 --> 00:55:52,370 I can put the address there for you because that's very, 418 00:55:52,370 --> 00:56:02,780 very useful and this is a fantastic resource and I have friends translating from checking things and we when I tell them with envy and the truth, 419 00:56:02,960 --> 00:56:06,020 the tragedy of their own situation where they didn't have this kind of support. 420 00:56:06,380 --> 00:56:10,040 And then there are other resources, there are still some things that are very, very hard. 421 00:56:10,040 --> 00:56:14,420 The hardest thing really is promoting Polish. It's just getting people to buy those books. 422 00:56:14,780 --> 00:56:22,819 So the Polish cultural institutes, which are Ministry of Foreign Affairs institutions in London and New York and Delhi, 423 00:56:22,820 --> 00:56:25,610 very useful because they help us to set up events. 424 00:56:25,820 --> 00:56:32,540 They have limited resources, but they help us to get writers over, promote books and do something to get people interested in them. 425 00:56:32,930 --> 00:56:37,960 Then there are other resources which aren't Polish specific, such as English Pen, 426 00:56:37,970 --> 00:56:46,670 which has all the old Arts Council funding and the Fantastic Translation Grant program, which started out last year. 427 00:56:46,670 --> 00:56:50,060 And then the EU also provides funding for translation. 428 00:56:50,540 --> 00:56:58,429 And now that's more translated training through the British Centre for Literary Translations, for whom I am mentoring Polish translators. 429 00:56:58,430 --> 00:57:02,130 But that's paid for again by the. This Ministry of Foreign Affairs. 430 00:57:02,550 --> 00:57:06,510 And then there are summer school for people who are interested in literary translation. 431 00:57:06,540 --> 00:57:11,280 I'll be running one city university this year for a week in June, 432 00:57:12,360 --> 00:57:22,140 and then the London Book Fair has a translation centre where there is a great deal of information about four budding translators. 433 00:57:23,010 --> 00:57:27,780 And Poland's going to be the guest at the London Book Fair either next year or the one off. 434 00:57:27,880 --> 00:57:31,380 We're not sure yet. It will be announced in April. 435 00:57:33,210 --> 00:57:36,930 So I know I've used up my time service. 436 00:57:37,590 --> 00:57:45,840 Yes. I mean, from 52 perspectives, inevitably people have a lot of interest. 437 00:57:47,760 --> 00:57:55,260 Thank you very much, because this is a very realistic presentation, not this is the real look where, 438 00:57:55,350 --> 00:58:04,979 you know, special courses are applied and great ideas take you back to something. 439 00:58:04,980 --> 00:58:11,400 What would you tell an idealist, which is how we study? 440 00:58:12,090 --> 00:58:21,960 Sure. And its dependency is not on translation featured so prominently on the poster. 441 00:58:22,290 --> 00:58:27,090 I feel that I should start from a book. I have a free three copies. 442 00:58:27,900 --> 00:58:32,130 Would you like to hear how some of the people have not seen this yet? 443 00:58:37,330 --> 00:58:51,220 Here's literature and transformation. This was an attempt not only by myself, but a group of 16 other schools to capture what happened. 444 00:58:51,230 --> 00:58:59,140 Changes to British culture since 1989 as a result of the political and economic changes. 445 00:58:59,450 --> 00:59:05,820 Yes. So we're basically talking about transition to democracy, removal of the official status, 446 00:59:06,760 --> 00:59:12,580 of the introduction of the more fully functional aspects of the reproduction. 447 00:59:14,020 --> 00:59:25,209 But we also look at way to recent research, notably, scholars work both in Poland and outside, responded to those factors. 448 00:59:25,210 --> 00:59:32,830 And two of those conclusions was that we now have a situation of plurality. 449 00:59:33,730 --> 00:59:37,270 We could not expand the books that we looked at. 450 00:59:37,510 --> 00:59:44,110 We could not find any common themes where there were common subjects to discuss the still issues 451 00:59:44,120 --> 00:59:51,819 about war and how this is still finding out because of the form of censorship speak honestly. 452 00:59:51,820 --> 01:00:01,110 And so a lot of suppressed stuff came out. So there were things like that, but no collective thing that would speak for all poets. 453 01:00:01,900 --> 01:00:04,990 The plethora of choice, flooded markets. 454 01:00:07,510 --> 01:00:20,770 So it's very difficult to find any markers which would indicate what is representative and therefore possibly what should be translated. 455 01:00:21,910 --> 01:00:30,110 Because I would say in the past there have been these kind of apologies that we've been talking about, an attempt to find, you know, 456 01:00:30,190 --> 01:00:38,049 some level of representativeness in order to create a camp appointment, which is one of my conclusions of doctrine, 457 01:00:38,050 --> 01:00:44,740 that the whole canon of literature, what we should study now is completely open. 458 01:00:47,710 --> 01:00:50,650 Now the book is not itself about translation. 459 01:00:52,630 --> 01:01:03,040 There is one article, though, about poetry translation, which which covers cultural ground that Julian Castro talked about. 460 01:01:05,230 --> 01:01:11,469 Well, in order to get this piece active, I should mention or explain who the book is. 461 01:01:11,470 --> 01:01:14,800 And that is one target audience. 462 01:01:15,290 --> 01:01:22,930 Scholars, like most other researchers, people generally interested in post culture, which we already have some knowledge. 463 01:01:24,220 --> 01:01:28,680 But it's all equally aimed at students and researchers of smoke, 464 01:01:28,870 --> 01:01:37,450 teachers and other fields who do not necessarily have an in-depth knowledge of polish and therefore can't read the books. 465 01:01:39,760 --> 01:01:49,670 When I'm not teaching at the moment, but I have to say that, you know, in my experience of teaching English literature a couple of years it. 466 01:01:52,750 --> 01:01:56,350 In the last ten years that this is the initial problem. 467 01:01:56,350 --> 01:02:03,260 This is the first problem that was encountered that people did not were not able or willing to read the text in college. 468 01:02:03,970 --> 01:02:08,350 So the whole course built around what existed in translation, 469 01:02:08,350 --> 01:02:24,280 and that is that you cannot now not this is not just the problem of teaching who is it, but of bringing Polish literature into a world of study. 470 01:02:24,700 --> 01:02:30,730 And this is something that I know like to do. The mission about a mission about several, many years. 471 01:02:31,150 --> 01:02:34,150 The Polish should not be treated necessarily as something separate, 472 01:02:34,390 --> 01:02:41,830 separate field of study whose literature to culture that it should be brought into a wider field. 473 01:02:41,830 --> 01:02:47,800 And I think this is where it also has a chance to support and be of interest to English. 474 01:02:48,520 --> 01:03:00,520 Speaking of deep roots of comparative literature, European cultural studies and other comparative fields such as European Romanticism, 475 01:03:01,090 --> 01:03:11,200 European Modernism, or the whole field of gender studies, women's studies, the whole field of the general post-colonial studies in post-Communist. 476 01:03:13,470 --> 01:03:16,670 Now, let me explain why I think this is so important, 477 01:03:16,680 --> 01:03:24,840 because it's not just a question of the Soviet fields and students being unwilling to read things in the visual language. 478 01:03:26,670 --> 01:03:29,010 It's also to do with the survival of the studies. 479 01:03:29,010 --> 01:03:36,209 And I'm sure some of you are aware of the term costs that Glasgow's been going through in the last few years, 480 01:03:36,210 --> 01:03:40,470 where the the Czech and the Polish studies are really on the threat. 481 01:03:40,800 --> 01:03:47,070 Well, then surviving what? They are surviving because they have moved into a comparative group. 482 01:03:47,760 --> 01:03:59,400 Now the studies project and the way I have studied the people are going through the system who are already studying to finish. 483 01:03:59,820 --> 01:04:08,700 But when they finished there were going to be no Polish literature study, which is only going to be in translation in comparative. 484 01:04:10,470 --> 01:04:15,720 So this is why it's important to me anyway what exists for translation. 485 01:04:16,950 --> 01:04:25,110 And there's also the additional points that while some of us might regret the passing of literary studies based on originals, 486 01:04:25,800 --> 01:04:29,690 the increased reliance on translations does offer the chance for more known, 487 01:04:29,700 --> 01:04:33,960 long projected speakers and monopoles to come in Bolton Field, 488 01:04:34,290 --> 01:04:40,470 and hence also for the three text to be included in the study of exactly these broader European ones. 489 01:04:41,070 --> 01:04:44,959 Comparative contexts. I mean, to me, 490 01:04:44,960 --> 01:04:50,630 this is a battle because of the difficulty of the language and the fact that 491 01:04:50,630 --> 01:04:55,460 relatively few people who are not post origin subject to a sufficiently high level. 492 01:04:55,520 --> 01:04:59,120 I think, you know, we will accept few exceptions. 493 01:05:01,160 --> 01:05:06,380 This means that the perception of Polish literature, something inaccessible. 494 01:05:07,430 --> 01:05:13,880 I mean, I'm not sure that I would really entirely agree with that. It's that there's a reaction here to the Central European. 495 01:05:14,060 --> 01:05:20,720 I think it's a question of normal chauvinism. To me, the barrier is the language. 496 01:05:21,260 --> 01:05:27,910 It's not a cultural problem. I can't really stress this enough is no mysterious mistake. 497 01:05:27,920 --> 01:05:32,180 What about Poland? Which does nothing that cannot be known. 498 01:05:32,820 --> 01:05:41,840 Yeah. The problem is the language. And until we get over that barrier, we're presenting things in English, in translation. 499 01:05:42,650 --> 01:05:54,410 I don't see how we know the efforts of individual translators because Anton is a great example of this. 500 01:05:54,800 --> 01:06:04,170 Also, Phil Johnston, who since 1989, he's translated not only contemporary literature, that's done many books of contemporary, 501 01:06:04,280 --> 01:06:10,310 he's also done pieces which I think been crucial in bringing home literacy studies to the English speaking world. 502 01:06:11,960 --> 01:06:19,660 However, the experience of working on our books has shown that despite this many texts covered by 503 01:06:19,680 --> 01:06:25,310 research are not translated and therefore they can't be accessible to local students. 504 01:06:25,880 --> 01:06:34,640 So the research itself remains limited in its appeal for a quick sample of students, 505 01:06:34,640 --> 01:06:44,830 maybe inspired while they were what we call them, take the study further or pursue the research because they can't read the books. 506 01:06:44,840 --> 01:06:50,540 And this is exactly the same experience that we have to see in this project. 507 01:06:51,080 --> 01:07:00,920 When we did a book on of these about ten years ago on the history of women's writing in Central and Eastern Europe. 508 01:07:01,280 --> 01:07:07,489 No, we produced this book, but there were so few translations that it sort of fell flat because it was it was meant to 509 01:07:07,490 --> 01:07:12,800 appeal to the gender studies and the women's studies and general cultural studies audience. 510 01:07:12,980 --> 01:07:22,430 But it didn't really have any lasting resonance because people could then take what they want to read about themselves. 511 01:07:24,290 --> 01:07:32,480 Now Antonio has already discussed some of the hurt. 512 01:07:32,860 --> 01:07:43,490 Unfortunately, in that book, we have in fact on Occupy the very same effect which happens we discussed 16 pages and I was just going to pause. 513 01:07:43,760 --> 01:07:47,780 Well, there's two of these that you actually featured. 514 01:07:48,200 --> 01:07:58,010 Oh, yeah, of course. I was going to mention one full of. 515 01:08:03,610 --> 01:08:07,820 Many. The article just doesn't isn't just a big graphical thing that this is what 516 01:08:07,840 --> 01:08:13,200 has come out to highlight the work of particular translators and populations. 517 01:08:13,620 --> 01:08:19,019 It also discusses this whole problem of being represented, know, being representative, 518 01:08:19,020 --> 01:08:27,270 of choosing out of the vast array of stuff that's been published in what it represents to the left. 519 01:08:27,280 --> 01:08:38,850 What's the account of? It basically ends up explaining how this is a entirely subjective thing. 520 01:08:39,780 --> 01:08:42,960 One thing leads to another. 521 01:08:43,260 --> 01:08:48,810 So certain poets become the ones that are always ready to move on to different operations. 522 01:08:49,290 --> 01:08:52,470 Whereas there are a whole load of others that never get to never get a look. 523 01:08:53,610 --> 01:08:58,169 So it's a lot. The whole business is very, I think, very unsatisfactory. 524 01:08:58,170 --> 01:09:02,040 And I suppose this, you know, has to be realistic otherwise. 525 01:09:04,020 --> 01:09:19,410 One thing that also I think is quite interesting, it shows how certain individuals have tried to bring Polish into a wider context of other poetry. 526 01:09:20,460 --> 01:09:25,890 So, for example, we work through Malcolm in his special issue of The Jackal, 527 01:09:25,910 --> 01:09:34,860 who then there's Brian McKay, who adopted an edition of Living with the Portuguese himself. 528 01:09:34,950 --> 01:09:41,189 A poet who works with poets is actually put in the context that so it's not just Jewish literature, 529 01:09:41,190 --> 01:09:47,070 but it's European virtue, it's Welsh poetry, Scottish poetry, and it's just the US military. 530 01:09:47,230 --> 01:09:55,440 Yeah. And like all this poetry obviously has some kind of national and specific cultural quotations, 531 01:09:55,620 --> 01:10:02,060 but mostly its interest and its its inspiration or craftsmanship. 532 01:10:02,970 --> 01:10:08,930 And this is something that I do want to emphasise today, which is my experience. 533 01:10:08,940 --> 01:10:18,090 I'm not foolish that what comes over from reading how you read a vast amount of literature is that it is entirely accessible. 534 01:10:18,840 --> 01:10:24,530 It's what is called what has been walked is the way we've studied it in the past. 535 01:10:24,540 --> 01:10:28,529 But certain certain things have been taken out. So we're talking about messianism. 536 01:10:28,530 --> 01:10:33,540 We're talking about with the British suffrage, we're talking about the particular wars. 537 01:10:34,890 --> 01:10:44,460 But these are things that any culture seems to come in some way identify with, but it's also transnational. 538 01:10:45,300 --> 01:11:01,190 The problem is the language barrier. Now we see this 16 foot long surplus and a few of all of just like it was abandoned because a lot of water, 539 01:11:01,760 --> 01:11:04,760 of course, has gone into choosing the boats. 540 01:11:04,970 --> 01:11:06,060 But they are all rich. 541 01:11:07,550 --> 01:11:14,990 And if you compare the ones that the boats that have actually been translated with another article in the book which was so great, 542 01:11:14,990 --> 01:11:19,880 a postcard from those generations, there is movement since 1989. 543 01:11:20,120 --> 01:11:24,560 It hardly touches the surface. So it's it's not a representation. 544 01:11:28,820 --> 01:11:34,760 So I mean, I think what I'm trying to say is that we should be very wary of these these kind 545 01:11:34,760 --> 01:11:44,680 of bad forgeries because they don't match the people that you've translated. 546 01:11:44,690 --> 01:11:52,430 And this applies to the fiction as well. Well, come on. Starting with it doesn't matter who owns the titles. 547 01:11:52,580 --> 01:11:53,930 You didn't coach Press. 548 01:11:54,410 --> 01:12:03,520 I mean, there is some overlap, of course, but generally speaking also reflects a different approach by well-known critics like Doris Roberts. 549 01:12:03,830 --> 01:12:13,730 Does it? Or indeed, because she needs to go in to all the reviewers, want to be not exhausting or to get information. 550 01:12:13,970 --> 01:12:20,900 That's one area. And the second area, all the works which are treated as objects of study. 551 01:12:21,380 --> 01:12:32,750 While academic critics misread historians such as in the various works on post 18 months, 1989, which was such experts as yes divisions. 552 01:12:32,810 --> 01:12:41,300 Eight or ten is what took these awful exceptions and you know, is one of them as is over to culture. 553 01:12:41,570 --> 01:12:46,010 So it's translated by quite honestly, they don't want to be exceptions. 554 01:12:48,230 --> 01:12:55,700 So obviously, you know, other criteria apply in selecting works translation for the market and those which have 555 01:12:55,700 --> 01:13:02,090 been identified as the ones we should perhaps be studying by competent Bush critics. 556 01:13:04,820 --> 01:13:10,530 Um. No, this is it. I mean, just to give you just a very quick statistics on the book, 557 01:13:10,550 --> 01:13:19,010 we have a lot of requests to require versions equal discusses that two of its principal school oh seven of which have been translated. 558 01:13:19,850 --> 01:13:30,200 There are two articles about novels based on migration since 2004, mainly to the UK and to Ireland. 559 01:13:31,220 --> 01:13:34,640 On this, no one could argue that they've all popular books. 560 01:13:34,640 --> 01:13:39,050 They're not particularly well written, but they are sociologically interesting. 561 01:13:39,260 --> 01:13:46,330 The two authors that discussed these, they discussed over 20 titles, only one of them Catholics, 562 01:13:46,340 --> 01:13:55,700 and then the government of France, which for them to stop is the only one of those trends that has been translated. 563 01:13:55,700 --> 01:14:07,790 And then, you know, the women were four schools of women writers from various aspects, I suppose angles 29 texts discussed. 564 01:14:08,420 --> 01:14:19,250 Only three have been translated into English again by consent to two books flying over to Portugal and Spain in the golden memory, you see. 565 01:14:19,370 --> 01:14:25,070 So when it comes to the study on the future of the study of Polish literature. 566 01:14:25,340 --> 01:14:31,520 This to me is concerning particularly, you know, as the survival of the stock, 567 01:14:31,700 --> 01:14:37,880 not just in Britain but in the USA is going to depend on a comparative context is quite important. 568 01:14:38,120 --> 01:14:39,770 You know what this translates? 569 01:14:44,130 --> 01:14:53,480 And I think, you know, it's the fact that, you know, you see people who are not supposed origin, have not read the text, then, 570 01:14:54,050 --> 01:15:01,850 you know, the way in which this study is going to be continues, continue to be working around over national issues exposed. 571 01:15:02,580 --> 01:15:08,969 Whereas if we don't get outside and bring the Polish texts into the void for Germany 572 01:15:08,970 --> 01:15:14,590 has a chance to be really appreciated for its its whole transaction volumes. 573 01:15:14,610 --> 01:15:19,170 I mean unless you are very strong in this and I think it's one of the tragedies of this literature, 574 01:15:19,620 --> 01:15:23,820 not just to talk about contemporary literature, but over centuries. 575 01:15:24,180 --> 01:15:33,300 But it's not a it example is an example of my own experience in it, but it's not brought into these white contexts. 576 01:15:35,700 --> 01:15:45,929 I mean, I'm a complete utopian you. But what I think all this means is a systematic program with funding texts identified. 577 01:15:45,930 --> 01:15:56,219 I mean, not just its importance, but going back even to lists of systematic projects identified by group of projects and scholars who dedicated 578 01:15:56,220 --> 01:16:05,160 money to pay publishers because they're not things that are going to sell them in the market and pay translators. 579 01:16:05,640 --> 01:16:15,650 And I would say that if you extend your list to include works, criticism, historical works, which are being produced in Poland which are not known. 580 01:16:15,660 --> 01:16:22,520 Yeah well it's getting so feed into voices right now. 581 01:16:23,100 --> 01:16:26,810 I got for 2 minutes for my. It's okay. 582 01:16:27,120 --> 01:16:36,960 Well I will now turn to my own modest attempts to address the gaps. 583 01:16:37,860 --> 01:16:45,630 And I eventually came to write my own invented translation program through women's schools. 584 01:16:45,960 --> 01:16:50,160 This was my impulse to translate women who had not been translated. 585 01:16:50,670 --> 01:16:56,040 Look, not just that now, but I'm talking about 19th and early 20th century. 586 01:16:56,580 --> 01:17:05,310 So, I mean, I concentrated most of my knowledge in both the book that was originally published in 1906 1816. 587 01:17:05,790 --> 01:17:08,520 It's in Baskets, the daughter of Isabella Chaucer, this stuff. 588 01:17:09,330 --> 01:17:18,090 And then, of course, you know, who is usually regarded as the first big time in English women's writing, 589 01:17:18,090 --> 01:17:24,370 although there are many writers, lots and lots of. 590 01:17:24,480 --> 01:17:28,889 So this was originally published in 1856. 591 01:17:28,890 --> 01:17:35,790 I now work as a novelist, so I've translated Sukar, which is has an international appeal. 592 01:17:35,940 --> 01:17:39,149 It has a sort of Thomas Mahon type of theme. 593 01:17:39,150 --> 01:17:47,340 It's set in 1925 in the Swiss Alps Sanitarium, and it has an international community. 594 01:17:47,550 --> 01:17:50,820 And it's not just nothing to do. It holds nothing to do. 595 01:17:52,360 --> 01:18:08,159 And one of the interesting things in it is that she meets there in the sanctuary of all the survivors from the genocide of 1916. 596 01:18:08,160 --> 01:18:17,430 And this is one of the earliest notes, one of the few that I know of witnesses to this this event by somebody is not her before me. 597 01:18:18,870 --> 01:18:22,250 So this is why I chose this war. Start with I've also translated ground. 598 01:18:22,260 --> 01:18:28,470 So I finished translating it once before this and there's another one coming out. 599 01:18:29,280 --> 01:18:34,499 So she looked at it from different things they all bought from the same publisher. 600 01:18:34,500 --> 01:18:39,270 And another one, Marcos, could try to buy another club, which wasn't. 601 01:18:40,830 --> 01:18:44,010 And my ongoing project. 602 01:18:44,010 --> 01:18:47,070 I have also a translation of a 17th century nun. 603 01:18:48,030 --> 01:18:56,849 Once you might think, Well, who the [INAUDIBLE] wants to publish that or read it is has actually got a publisher and it's good possibilities. 604 01:18:56,850 --> 01:19:07,080 Transnational Series The Other Voice in Early of Europe, which is a series that was founded by two scholars in Chicago, 605 01:19:07,560 --> 01:19:13,140 it was originally published by the University of Chicago Press, was recently moved to Toronto. 606 01:19:13,470 --> 01:19:23,540 And my text, which is the I can be a graphic picture of one who is a Carmelite discalced Carmelite. 607 01:19:24,060 --> 01:19:29,150 And it's written very much in the in the spirit of, oh, yeah, 608 01:19:29,670 --> 01:19:38,040 this is one of 3/17 century Polish texts that are included in this vast series of slow Italian and French and the rest of it. 609 01:19:38,880 --> 01:19:45,630 Let's tell you about. So I. What I've been pushing over Solomon is the novel. 610 01:19:45,930 --> 01:19:50,740 He was troubled diary of a woman that he trained as a doctor of sorts. 611 01:19:51,540 --> 01:19:55,320 She travelled in Turkey and in Washington, and that's one of them. 612 01:19:55,830 --> 01:20:04,690 And the other one is of a small Francesca Reggie do over who lived what she learned in the early 18th century, which is playwrights. 613 01:20:04,710 --> 01:20:08,130 Yes. Now she created the theatre, Michel. 614 01:20:11,050 --> 01:20:16,440 Okay. So I have to say, why? 615 01:20:16,490 --> 01:20:20,850 Why I think these women, though, it's not just because they are women's texts, 616 01:20:20,880 --> 01:20:28,090 which I know is the work of the comedians talks about what women feel and because they are. 617 01:20:28,440 --> 01:20:40,050 So tell us about aspects of Polish culture that we don't learn about from male voice in writing, which is outside Poland's in dispute. 618 01:20:40,260 --> 01:20:46,560 This is the romance. Yeah. So this movie was originally published in 1816, so it's in about four years. 619 01:20:47,630 --> 01:20:51,660 But The Heathen was published in 1846. 620 01:20:53,600 --> 01:20:57,270 Now when I study projects, Jim, I think this is still based on principles. 621 01:20:57,940 --> 01:21:05,140 We learned about the three great romantics and they wrote in reaction to the 1830 uprising. 622 01:21:05,590 --> 01:21:06,820 They wrote in exile. 623 01:21:07,090 --> 01:21:19,170 They were then writing poetry or dramas, wrote will at least tell us about culture in Hollywood itself in partition quotes from well, 624 01:21:19,180 --> 01:21:27,280 you know, we can learn what's on the show to discuss the environment, environments, the media of the diverse person. 625 01:21:27,880 --> 01:21:36,670 We can learn a lot about intellectual life in actually in the Congress kingdom, often because it's a very interesting period, 626 01:21:36,670 --> 01:21:43,060 because it's in the founding of the Congress and the introduction of the first. 627 01:21:44,850 --> 01:21:51,170 Since. So it was a very fluid time and the background to it is the 1812 campaign. 628 01:21:51,780 --> 01:21:55,300 So it's very much a patriotic look. 629 01:21:55,320 --> 01:22:00,900 It's got the elements, but it has a lot more about about he's a European. 630 01:22:01,350 --> 01:22:06,030 And the same is true of Christian Austria. They happened to be written in Polish. 631 01:22:06,300 --> 01:22:16,100 They have patriotic dimensions. What they tell us about the culture, the time in the romantic period, in the postcards itself, 632 01:22:16,500 --> 01:22:22,260 and they all European texts, they happen to be European texts written in quotes. 633 01:22:23,250 --> 01:22:31,590 Because if you look at the dominant so from my introduction you see that the inspirations come from European literature, 634 01:22:32,010 --> 01:22:37,080 French literature, English literature, they come from German literature. 635 01:22:37,560 --> 01:22:42,040 And this was something which was studied interestingly in the clothes. 636 01:22:42,270 --> 01:22:48,090 So I'm not these are not texts that I've dug out from my own books. 637 01:22:48,300 --> 01:22:51,870 They were texts that were well known during the in their day. 638 01:22:52,170 --> 01:22:58,380 And in the thirties they were they were studied and written about while you were flying a boy or girl. 639 01:23:00,120 --> 01:23:04,810 But I think shinkle. Yeah. So this is yeah. 640 01:23:04,820 --> 01:23:13,450 So yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. 641 01:23:13,800 --> 01:23:20,160 Absolutely. And, and this is a time for questions from our audience. 642 01:23:22,350 --> 01:23:30,820 So first of all, I would like to thank you all very much and.