Jacek Podsiadło

Absinthe 10 included a poem by Jacek Podsiadło and at the web site for the Polish Book Institute there is a brief mention of his new book of fiction.

An excerpt:

Podsiadło is interested in all paths—the well-trodden, like the Road to Slovakia, to Egon Bondy, and the unfamiliar, explored for the first time. Of these routes, as noted in the book, there are hundreds, and the equally intriguing guide-narrator makes even getting lost on them into an adventure. The whole thing is a journey that has never taken place in Polish literature before.

Adam Zagajewski and Translation Roundtables at the University of Michigan

The Polish poet Adam Zagajewski will be reading at the University of Michigan on December 4th and participating in a roundtable discussion on translation the following day, Friday, December 5th. The full schedule for the translation roundtables is below and more information about the reading can be found here.

THE ETHICS OF TRANSLATION
Two Roundtable Discussions, co-sponsored by the Department of Comparative Literature, the MFA Program in Creative Writing, the Modern Greek Program, and the Center for Russian and Eastern European Studies.

Friday, 5 December 2008
3222 Angell Hall
University of Michigan

10:30-12:30: WHY TRANSLATE?
Moderator:
Yopie Prins (English/Comparative Literature)
Roundtable:
Christi Merrill (Asian Languages/Comparative Literature)
Joshua Miller (English Literature)
Alina Clej (Romance Languages/Comparative Literature)
Kader Konuk (German/Comparative Literature)
Vassilis Lambropoulos (Classical Studies/Comparative Literature)

1:30-3:30: IS TRANSLATION POSSIBLE?
Moderator:
Benjamin Paloff (Society of Fellows, Slavic/Comparative Literature)
Roundtable:
Adam Zagajewski (MFA Visiting Poet)
Tatjana Aleksic (Slavic/Comparative Literature)
David Caron (Romance Languages/Women's Studies)
Khaled Mattawa (English Literature/Creative Writing)
Keith Taylor (English Literature /Creative Writing)

Death and Betrayal in Poland

Last Sunday night, Jessica and I attended the final film of the Ann Arbor Polish Film Festival , a screening of the documentary Trzech Kumpli (“Three Buddies”). The film, directed by Ewa Stankiewicz and Anna Ferens, tells the story of three college friends—Stanislaw Pyjas, Leszek Maleszka, and Bronisław Wildstein--during the late 70s in Poland. While his friends were unaware, Maleszka was working as an informant for the secret police (and also informed on the poet Adam Zagajewski, among others). The film explores whether Maleszka's denunciation led to the murder of Pyjas thirty years ago.

What is forgiveness and is it possible to forgive someone who is unrepentant? Can a nation heal when it ignores the past or must all collaborators be exposed? These difficult questions were addressed by the film and were also discussed during a spirited discussion between the filmmakers and members of the audience following the screening.

(The film is particularly relevant in light of the recent allegations suggesting that Czech writer Milan Kundera had informed on the whereabouts of Miroslav Dvoracek--who was captured and imprisoned for over a decade--during Kundera's days as a student.)

Adam Zagajewski on Milosz

In the Threepenny Review Adam Zagajewski remembers Czeslaw Milosz:

One of the last humans who spoke to him in his hours of agony was an uneducated woman who took care of his small household, a wonderful person with a great heart. I like to think of it: in the vast polyphony of the almost hundred years of his dramatic existence, the ultimate sound he heard was an unschooled voice of goodness. Perhaps in this soothing voice he found something like an arch between his early idyllic childhood in the Lithuanian countryside and his closing moments; and in between there remained, bracketed out for once, the rage of modern history, the loneliness of his long exile, the violence of his struggles, of his thought, his imagination, his rebellions.