From award-winning translations and beautifully imaginative children's books to Szymborska's final collection of poetry, Culture.pl presents our top 5 Polish literary events of 2012 from around the world
5. Joanna Trzeciak Wins the Found in Translation Award 2012
Trzeciak’s translation was awarded with the 5th annual prize for its unique quality as well as the great significance of the translated text itself. Sobbing Superpower is a 368-page volume of poetry by Tadeusz Różewicz, selected by Trzeciak and taking its title - Spłakane mocarstwo, in the original - from one of Różewicz’s poems. U.S. literary critic and poet Edward Hirsch, in his introduction to the collection, praised Trzeciak for capturing the poet’s "witty way of negating the world, his determined articulation and abrupt turns, his inclination towards conversing, his well planned pauses, and his unsophisticated sophistication."
4. Jerzy Pilch up for Best Fiction of 2012
Pilch's novel came out in its English edition, translated by David Frick, published by Open Letter in April 2012. Kirkus Review reviewed the book in May, then selected it for the top 100 title list of 2012. The novel tells the story of a man in his 50s, who thinks back to the time he'd first thought of killing himself. Using the excuse of his own self-destruction to indulge in a few activities he would have considered taboo otherwise, Pilch creates a humorous story rooted in the darker moments of everyday existence. Kirkus sums up its review with "It’s hard to do justice to the outré and eccentric but gorgeous quality of Pilch’s prose. Here he manages to pull off some neat literary tricks, frequently and self-consciously undermining the seriousness of his subjects with pricks of irony".
3. Wszystko Gra with the BolognaRagazzi Award
Writer Anna Czerwińska-Rydel and illustrator Marta Ignerska won the BolognaRagazzi Award for Best Non-fiction Book for their Wszystko gra / All's Play. The writer and illustrator received their prize on the opening day of the BolognaRagazzi Fair. The book was applauded for its "authentically different graphic tradition [...], marking a break no less powerful than the Gutenberg revolution", in the jury's verdict. "Elements from ancient styles, snippets of the most recent visual expressionism, and passing references to a wealth of authors, eras, hybrid styles and traditions have been harness with consummate skill to put sound and rhythm into graphic form. Everything is bound together by a unifying element: a lightness of touch, that ineffable and disquieting lightness of touch".
2. Wiesław Myśliwski Wins the 2012 Best Translated Book Award.
Wiesław Myśliwski's Stone upon Stone, translated by Bill Johnston, was honoured as the best original translation of international literature published in the U.S. over the previous year. Published 25 years after the Polish original, Stone upon Stone in English translation presents its author's grand, rural epic. The story of Szymek, a Polish farmer determined to build a tomb for himself after a life of boozing, brawling, fighting in the resistance, serving as a marriage officer, and exaggerating his way through the 20th century and the modernization of his small town. According to the Times Literary Supplement, Myśliwski’s book is "a marvel of narrative seduction, a rare double masterpiece of storytelling and translation."
1. Enough: Wisława Szymborska's Final Collection of Poems
The last volume written by the late Wisława Szymborska has been released under the purposeful title Wystarczy (Enough), only a few months after her death. The 13 poems in the collection carry forward the timelessness of Szymborska's works and the collection also features letters written by the Nobel Prize laureate. Her poems are arranged in the chronological order of their writing, and some may be familiar to readers, as they were previously published in literary magazines. Szymborska signed the contract for the collection before her death, selecting the collection’s pointed title herself.
Editor: SRS
Thumbnail credits: Wszystko Gra illustration by Marta Ignerska