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Polish works up for US National Translation Award

PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge 21.08.2014 12:15
Two Polish titles have made the longlist for America's National Translation Award.

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Photo: Glow Images

Wieslaw Mysliwski's A Treatise on Shelling Beans, as translated by Bill Johnston, and Agnieszka Kuciak's Distant Lands: An Anthology of Poets Who Don’t Exist, translated by Karen Kovacik, have joined 13 other contenders for the prize.

The National Translation Award is organised by the American Literary Translators Association (ALTA), and the winning translator will be presented with a cheque for 5000 dollars.

“Featuring authors from 15 countries writing in 11 languages, this year’s longlist illustrates the prize’s dedication to literary diversity, with works by both established and emerging authors, and by both established and emerging translators,” the organisers commented.

A Polish work won the award in 2011, thanks to Danuta Borchardt's translation of Witold Gombrowicz's celebrated 1930s novel Ferdydurke.

Mysliwski's A Treatise on Shelling Beans unravels the dramatic past of a caretaker of some Polish holiday cottages. The Times Literary Supplement described the novel as “a marvel of narrative seduction, a rare double masterpiece of storytelling and translation.

In Distant Lands: An Anthology of Poets Who Don’t Exist, Agnieszka Kuciak creates voices for 21 imaginary poets, and it was described by poet Nin Andrews as “mystical, mischievous and musical.”

The final shortlist of 5 works will be announced in October. (nh)

Source: culture.pl

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