In contrast to numerous translations of children’s stories done from English and published in Poland between 1945 and 1989, there are very few English renditions of Polish stories for children from the period concerned brought out by Anglo-American publishing houses.79 Out of the total eighteen books for very young readers rendered into English between 1945 and 1989 only five appeared in foreign presses, one was co-published by a British and Polish publisher and the remaining twelve translations were brought out in Poland. The situation of Polish teenage fiction from that time looks even worse, as no Polish-English translations of post-war prose works for this readership exist at all. As Bogumiła Staniów writes:
After 1945 translations of Polish literature addressed to young readers expanded both territorially and linguistically in comparison to the pre-WWII period. Unfortunately, the political situation and the ideologisation of literature in post-war Poland made natural contacts with other countries impossible; the domestic book market was governed by irrational rules too. […] Information on good books for young readers was very limited; there was no periodical in Poland at the time devoted exclusively to books for children, a periodical that would professionally analyse this branch of literature and review new books. […] The repertoire of foreign publishers was dominated by contemporary literature, i.e. books first published after 1945. […] [However, o]lder classics appeared more frequently in the repertoire of capitalist countries. (2006a: 337- 338)
Indeed, the very first English translations of contemporary Polish literature for children did not appear until the 1960s, accompanied with illustrations from the original editions, made by Polish artists. The graphic attraction of the books was an extra driving force
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behind their renditions. When reminiscing about encounters with writers inside the Soviet bloc, Margaret Atwood wrote:
At polite official occasions there was what was said, and then there was what was not said, but was supposed to be understood. “Why do you have so many beautifully illustrated children’s picture books in Poland?” I asked another writer, at a book fair. “Think about it,” she replied. (2007)
On the one hand this anecdote may illustrate the anti-communist obsession of the Polish writer conversing with Atwood, whereas on the other, the lavishly illustrated books for children presented at international book fairs may indeed have been conceived as an eye- catcher, whose objective was to draw attention away from the political concerns of adult literature. Nevertheless, not many contemporary children’s picture books were sold onto the Anglo-American market between 1945 and 1989.
Four illustrated books for children were published in English translation in the 1960s:
Rudzia (1958; Squirrel Redcoat, 1961) by Jadwiga Wernerowa, Miś na huśtawce (1960; Teddy and the Seesaw, 1963) by Helena Bechlerowa, Moje gospodarstwo (1961; Make Me a Farm, 1963) by Krystyna Pokorska and Wielkie prace małej pszczoły (1950; The World of the Bee, 1964) by Cecylia Lewandowska. Only Rudzia’s translator, Maria Paczyńska, was named,
the remaining stories being rendered anonymously. The first three booklets were originally brought out in Polish by the Warsaw-based publishing house Nasza Księgarnia, which could boast first-class editing and was apparently successful in promoting their publications for children abroad. Lewandowska’s The World of the Bee had a different character than the other books. Its aim was to introduce children to the fascinating world of bees by a series of educational literary sketches presented in a scientifically informed but attractive and approachable way. Interestingly enough, although not the publisher of the original Polish edition, Nasza Księgarnia was a co-publisher of the English version of the book together with the British Heinemann.
Altogether three children’s books came out in English in the 1970s: Wróbel czarodziej (1956; A Sparrow’s Magic, 1970) by Maria Niklewiczowa, Chłopiec z wieżowca (1977; The
Boy from the Skyscraper, 1977) by Magda Leja and Szare uszko (1963; The Grey Ear, 1979)
by Mieczysław Piotrowski. The stories by Leja and Piotrowski were brought out in both language versions by the Polish publisher KAW.80
80 Czytelnik was the first publisher of the Polish-language edition of Szare uszko (1963; The Grey Ear, 1979), but KAW reprinted the book twice (in 1975 and 1978) and brought out its English translation in 1979.
The 1980s constitute a phenomenon in the field of Polish-English translation of children’s books. As many as ten narratives were brought out in English then, all of them but one published by Wydawnictwo Polonia in Warsaw.81 All the nine books came out in bilingual, Polish-English editions, the first being Jerzy Dąbrowski’s Leśne harce / Woodland
Frolics (1987), a children’s story in verse. The book was rendered into English by Tomasz
Wyżyński, who was also the translator of the song contained in Barbara Lipska’s
Poniedziałek na wyspie / Monday on the Island (1987), the first of the seven booklets of the
series entitled A Week of Adventures in Africa. The series was based on the scripts for the animated film series of the same title, co-authored by Lipska. The remaining books in the series, published by 1989, comprised: Na ratunek plantacji / Saving the Plantation (1988),
Wycieczka na pustynię / An Excursion to the Desert (1989) and Powrót balonem / Returning by Balloon (1989), all of them rendered into English by Emma Harris. Harris was also the
translator of another series of booklets, The Secrets of Osier Bay, which originated in the same way as A Week of Adventures in Africa, since it was first broadcast on TV as an animated film series. The stories were penned by one of the two original film script writers, Jerzy Maciej Siatkiewicz. Again five parts of the whole series appeared before 1990:
Zasiedliny / Settling In (1987), Intruz / The Intruder (1989), Szafir / Sapphire (1989) and Powódź / The Flood (1989). The only translation in the studied group which was not
published in Poland was Sławomir Wolski’s Tiger Cat (1988), an indirect rendition of the Polish text illustrated by Józef Wilkoń.
Until 2015 only one more rendition from the 1945-1989 literary repertoire for children was published. It was the bilingual edition of Adam Bahdaj’s Pilot i ja / The Pilot and Me (1997), brought out by the Polish publisher Literatura.
2.1.7. Other Subjects
Novels and short-story collections in this group are relatively numerous,82 since they constitute cases which did not fall into the previously distinguished thematic categories, but were too few to form a consistent subject group in their own right.
One such specific work was Bayamus (1949) by Stefan Themerson, in which the writer described the adventures of a three-legged superhuman mutant named Bayamus and introduced the theory of semantic poetry. In the Polish context, Bayamus is treated as a so-
81 Wydawnictwo Polonia, known by its English name as Polonia Publishers, should not be confused with the Polonia Publishing House which ceased to exist as an independent publisher in 1967.
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called długie opowiadanie (a long story), shorter than a novel but longer than a short story. It was one of the few texts in the studied material penned originally in Polish and subsequently recreated in English by its author. Another work which followed the same linguistic sequence was Professor Mmaa’s Lecture (1953), also by Themerson, rendered by the author into English from a Polish manuscript written during the Second World War. Professor Mmaa’s
Lecture was brought out by Gaberbocchus Press, a publishing house founded by the writer in
1948 together with Franciszka Themerson, a graphic and visual artist. Their common “aim was to produce ‘best lookers’ rather than ‘best sellers’.”83
In the 1960s another idiosyncratic novel originally written in Polish and then translated by Stefan Themerson appeared in Gaberbocchus Press. It was Cardinal
Pölätüo (1961), allegedly the last work by Themerson not to have been written directly in
English (Wadley).84 Cardinal Pölätüo was a risky combination of philosophy, linguistics and a general fictional plot. In the same decade two post-war novels by Witold Gombrowicz were published in indirect English rendition: Pornografia (1960; Pornografia, 1966) and Kosmos (1965; Cosmos, 1967). Pornografia was translated from the French, while Cosmos from the French and German. The first direct translations of these works were given by Danuta Borchardt in 2009 and 2005 respectively. Although the plot of Pornografia is set against the backdrop of the Second World War, it only serves as a pretext for deconstructing national myths, since both novels are focused on exploring the darker side of human nature, our perception of the world and the workings of the mind, through the grotesque and exaggeration. Two other novels translated into English in the 1960s included Włodzimierz Odojewski’s Miejsca nawiedzone (1959; The Dying Day, 1964), a monologue of a terminally ill writer, and Jerzy Andrzejewski’s Idzie skacząc po górach (1963; He Cometh Leaping upon
the Mountains, 1965, British title / A Sitter for a Satyr, American title). Ostensibly, the novel
was a satirical story about the life of a contemporary artist in the West. In his History of
Polish Literature, Miłosz wrote:
Internationally recognised, translated into foreign languages, Andrzejewski traveled to Western Europe, and after a long stay in Paris, he left his inhibitions still further behind, in the novel He Cometh Leaping upon the Mountains (Idzie
skacząc po górach (1963; its American version is entitled A Sitter for a Satyr).
A mixture of buffoonery and melodrama, this is a display of the author’s bravado in parodying the style of Western best sellers and in jousting with the
83 See http://www.themersonarchive.com/page4med.htm.
84 The introductory note contained in the Polish edition of the book informs that only one third of it was first written in Polish (Themerson 1971: front cover flap).
artistic and intellectual milieu. The central figure, an old French painter, who spends most of his time in Provence and whose genius is revived, according to gossip, by affairs with young girls, resembles Picasso. (1983: 493)
Notwithstanding the titillating layer of the novel’s plot, many readers in Poland treated the book in political terms. Describing the state of Polish literature, once again held more closely under the censor’s control after the October Thaw finished for good, a writer from Poland, hidden behind the pseudonym Piotr Świderek, argued:
After October he [Jerzy Andrzejewski] became a zealous revisionist, contemplated the political problem somewhat insincerely, and finally – after a long visit to Paris – wrote He Walks Jumping from Mountain to Mountain [Idzie skacząc po górach]. In both the language and style the book shows masterly comprehension of the literary task, and ranks with the best of postwar Polish prose. It deals with the life history of a great painter (in whom it is not difficult to recognize a slightly pastiched Picasso), the theme being the role of the artist in a free and democratic society. Andrzejewski seems to be fascinated by the things permitted an artist in a non-totalitarian country, which of course implies a comparison with the things an artist is not allowed to do in a communist society. The dictators of Polish culture saw in Andrzejewski’s book various liberal-anarchistic tendencies, homosexuality, pornography and despair. However, a well-organized campaign in favor of the book convinced them that Andrzejewski was satirizing contemporary capitalist art – and the book was published. The first printing sold out in a few days. (1966: 34)
Whether the political level of the novel was legible to the Anglophone reader is doubtful, but its sensuality must have nevertheless appealed to the popular readership.
Six books which do not belong to any of the main thematic groups were published in English translation in the 1970s, among them three novels, one collection of short stories and two collections of quasi-biblical tales by Leszek Kołakowski. The two collections by Kołakowski were translations of the same two Polish source texts: Klucz niebieski albo
Opowieści budujące z historii świętej zebrane ku pouczeniu i przestrodze (1964) and Rozmowy z diabłem (1965). However, while the American edition, The Key to Heaven: Edifying Tales from Holy Scripture to Serve as Teaching and Warning (1972), contained an
indirect translation of Klucz niebieski…, done from the German, the British edition, entitled
The Devil and Scripture (1973), featured a direct rendition of the book, performed by
Nicholas Bethell. On the other hand, both editions featured a direct translation of Rozmowy z
diabłem, done by Celina Wieniewska.
The remaining four books published in English in the 1970s were: Tristan (1974) by Maria Kuncewiczowa, recreated in English by the author after the Polish Tristan 1946 (1967),
a transposition of the Arthurian legend into the period following the Second World War, set in Cornwall and on Long Island; Eugeniusz Żytomirski’s erotic novel Gothic Avenue (1975) translated into English from an unpublished Polish manuscript and brought out in Canada;
Zwierzoczłekoupiór (1969; The Anthropos-Spectre-Beast, 1977) by Tadeusz Konwicki and Szechterezada (1975; Bridge on Ice, 1977) by Szymon Szechter. The last book was brought
out by Kontra, an independent publishing house established in 1970 in London by Szymon Szechter and Nina Karsov, two political exiles from Poland. Konwicki’s book, The
Anthropos-Spectre-Beast, was very different from his earlier novel, A Dreambook for Our Time, which appeared in English in 1969. David John Welsh reviewed it in the following
way:
Zwierzoczłekoupiór (The Animalmanspecter) is even more comic and weird
than his previous work [Wniebowstąpienie (1967)].85 Ostensibly written for children (the decorations are charming) it is not meant for “good children,” as they will not benefit from it (says Konwicki). The novel exists on at least three levels: the narrative itself which can be related to Winnie-the-Pooh and Alice in
Wonderland; the “real world,” bearing in mind always that reality is something
peculiarly ambiguous in Konwicki’s fiction; and the narrator’s dream world. (1970a: 501-502)
The 1980s indisputably belonged to Czesław Miłosz after he received the Nobel Prize for Literature at the very beginning of the decade. Not only his poetry, but also his prose works were translated en masse. Among these was the poetic and to some extent autobiographical Dolina Issy (1955; The Issa Valley, 1981). Originally published in Polish by the Literary Institute, the novel was one of the few writings by Miłosz to appear officially in Poland before 1989. Three other Polish books published in English in the 1980s were Kubuś (1985; Kubuś: My Friend the Cat, 1988), a series of poetic narratives written and published by Czesław Bednarczyk in his Poets and Painters’ Press, Dziennik pisany na wyspie:
opowiadania (1987; Island Diary: Short Stories, 1989) by Halina Bonikowska and Leszek
85
Welsh wrote: “His [Konwicki’s] ill-fated Ascension [Wniebowstąpienie], withdrawn under mysterious circumstances after a first printing of 20,000 copies had been sold out, supposedly on Gomułka’s personal orders, remains suspended in the limbo of Polish ‘non-novels.’ Unlike certain contemporaries in the Soviet Union, Konwicki has not yet found a publisher in the West ready to risk printing a translation of his weirdly comic and bleak novel” (1970a: 501). The fact that the political potential of Konwicki’s Wniebowstąpienie (1967; Ascension) was not used by the Anglo-American translation commissioners in the United States or United Kingdom might look quite puzzling. This, however, may be connected with the publication of the Katzenbach Committee Report at the time concerned (see Chapter One, pp. 78-79). The translation of A Dreambook for Our Time (1969) could have been commissioned before the report was published, while Jerzy Andrzejewski’s The Appeal (1971) was co-published with the British press, Weidenfeld and Nicolson. Since nothing changed in the field of international covert operations, it may explain the appearance of the renditions of Wniebowstąpienie in French (L’ascension, 1971), German (Auf der Spitze des Kulturpalastes: Roman, 1973) and Argentinian (La ascensión, 1973). Later the book was also rendered into Swedish (Himmelsfärden, 1979).
Kołakowski’s 13 bajek z królestwa Lailonii dla dużych i małych (1963; Tales from the
Kingdom of Lailonia and The Key to Heaven, 1989). In the latter book, only Tales from the Kingdom of Lailonia were a new translation since the tales from the collection The Key to Heaven in an indirect rendition from German had been previously published in The Key to Heaven: Edifying Tales from Holy Scripture to Serve as Teaching and Warning (1972).
Altogether six translated novels fall into the “other subjects” category in the 1990s:
Drugie zabicie psa (1965; Killing the Second Dog, 1990) and Wszyscy byli odwróceni (1964; All Backs Were Turned, 1991) by Marek Hłasko, deriving from the writer’s Israeli period, Pałac (1970; The Palace, 1991) by Wiesław Myśliwski, a philosophical narrative about the
pre-war world on the verge of collapse, but above all about human nature, Witold Gombrowicz’s multi-layered Trans-Atlantyk (1953; Trans-Atlantyk, 1994), Złowić cień (1976;
The Shadow Catcher, 1997) by Andrzej Szczypiorski, a poignant novel about the coming of
age of a fifteen-year-old boy whose adolescent dreams are about to be shattered by the approaching war, and Rudolf (1980; Rudolf, 1996) by Marian Pankowski, scandalous not only because of its homosexual content, but also because of its iconoclastic attitude to Polish national myths in an altogether different way than in Gombrowicz’s Trans-Atlantyk. Symbolically, the English translation of Pankowski’s novel was published in the Writings from an Unbound Europe series, indeed epitomising a release from ideological and social shackles and foreshadowing the emergence of contemporary Polish writers, free from the political slant of the works translated until then.
The first book to be published in English translation between 2000 and 2009 from the old literary repertoire was Znak szczególny (1970; A Distinguishing Mark, 2004), an autobiographical novel by the renowned Polish composer Grażyna Bacewicz. Bacewicz’s book was followed by Danuta Mostwin’s Testaments: Two Novellas of Emigration and Exile (2005), one of which first came out before 1989, and by Danuta Borchardt’s retranslation of Witold Gombrowicz’s Cosmos (2005). In 2006 two books appeared: Halina Poświatowska’s autobiographical Story for a Friend (2006) and Jerzy Ficowski’s oniric Waiting for the Dog to
Sleep (2006). Three years later a selection of works by Andrzej Bursa, Killing Auntie and Other Work (2009), was translated into English and finally, Danuta Borchardt’s first direct
Polish-English rendition of Witold Gombrowicz’s Pornografia appeared in 2009, for which she received the Book Institute’s Found in Translation Award. Symptomatically, apart from Borchardt, all the translators of the above-mentioned works were beginners in the trade and the fruit of their efforts was published mostly in independent publishing houses or university presses.
In 2014 there appeared yet another retranslation of one of Gombrowicz’s novels. This time Danuta Borchardt retranslated his Trans-Atlantyk, which previously appeared in another direct translation by Carolyn French and Nina Karsov.
2.1.8. Concluding Remarks
Accumulated decade by decade, the total distribution of English translations of Polish- language novels and short stories from the 1945-1989 period, published as individual books, approximates the shape of a bell curve, with the exception of the 1980s decade.86 The outstanding number of renditions in the 1980s was the outcome of three factors: the political situation in Poland, the continuing popularity of Stanisław Lem’s science-fiction novels and the publishing policy of Wydawnictwo Polonia (Polonia Publishers), which brought out as many as nine bilingual books for children in that period. The drop noticeable in the 1970s, clearly connected with translations of books first published abroad, might have been the aftermath of the Katzenbach Committee Report from 1967.87
The otherwise normal distribution of the numerical data, especially when it concerns books first published officially in Poland, is typical of the growing and then, at the other extreme, diminishing interest in the analysed literary repertoire. After the 1989 caesura, there was no rationale in going back to old political novels, while in the case of apolitical narratives the quantitative distribution of the material studied here would have looked very much the same even if communism had not come to an end in Poland, since the publishing world prefers to focus on new titles.88
The thematic distribution of books presented in this chapter reveals that until 1989