American scribe wins prestigious Polish translation award
PR dla Zagranicy
Nick Hodge
19.04.2016 13:10
Professor Bill Johnston has won Poland's annual 'Found in Translation Award' for his rendering of Tomasz Różycki's mock epic poem 'Twelve Stations'.
Bill Johnston. Photo: Facebook/Polish Institute New Delhi
The prize, which is sponsored by the Polish Book Institute, the Polish Cultural Institute London, the Polish Cultural Institute New York and the Polish Institute New Delhi is open to works translated from Polish into English.
Różycki's 'Twelve Stations' follows a young Pole who sets off for a family reunion in Ukraine, where his family had lived until the immediate aftermath of WWII, when Poland's borders were shifted west.
The author playfully references Polish literary grandees of the past such as Adam Mickiewicz and Czesław Milosz.
Professor Johnston is himself working on a new translation of Mickiewicz's epic poem 'Pan Tadeusz'.
He is currently Professor of Comparative Literature at Indiana University, Bloomington.
The Found in Translation Award was established 2007. The winner receives a prize PLN 16,000, coupled with a three-month residency in Kraków, which has been a UNESCO City of Literature since 2013. (nh/pk)