The full programme of 2023 Found In Translation has landed!

This year, “Found In Translation” Gdańsk Literary Meetings will take place on 20–22 April, focusing on drama and its translations. Among the attractions awaiting our audience is the first performative reading of Brian Friel’s play Translations in a new translation, a conversation with dramatist Małgorzata Sikorska-Miszczuk and her translators, and a sparring session between two translators from German: Monika Muskała and Agnieszka Kowaluk.

The festival programme was compiled by a team of literary translators and cultural managers backed by a theatre expert: Justyna Czechowska, Magda Heydel, Urszula Kropiwiec, and Anna Lewandowska. This time, the Programme Board has prepared a selection of interdisciplinary events spanning literature, theatre, and translation.

“Found In Translation” Gdańsk Literary Meetings shines the spotlight on literature and translation. For the last ten years, the festival has enabled us to observe how translation builds relations between people, cultures, and art disciplines. Each edition is an opportunity to showcase different elements of the fascinating world of translation. This year’s drama edition explores how – and where – literature, theatre, and translations intersect. It looks at how staging visions influence translation decisions. It listens to the language as it becomes adapted to staging conditions.

What awaits our audience this year?

20 April (Thursday)
Director Anna Augustynowicz will deliver the opening lecture, after which we will return to a familiar format: dramatist Małgorzata Sikorska-Miszczuk will talk to her translators. Andreas Volk (German), Kinga Joucaviel (French), and Roman Sikora (Czech) will share insights about their work with translations of the protagonist’s oeuvre.
To close the evening, the Stara Apteka stage will host the first performative reading of Brian Friel’s play Translations directed by Zdenka Pszczołowska. The new translation of Translations (sic), commissioned by the festival, will be available in book form.

21 April (Friday)
Friday will see conversations on new translations of poetry published as part of the Versopolis network, translations of theatre plays, and the presence of Ukrainian drama on European scenes. We will also invite our audience to a translation sparring session between Monika Muskała and Agnieszka Kowaluk, who will translate a fragment of Elfriede Jelinek’s text.
In the evening, St. John’s Centre will host a meeting with the nominees and the T. Boy-Żeleński Translation Award gala.

22 April (Saturday)
Saturday will begin with a conversation with the Lifetime Achievement Award winner Ireneusz Kania. Then, together with our guests, we will ponder on the condition of contemporary Polish playwriting as well as the ‘theatre professions’ and relations between directors, dramatists, and translators.
To conclude Gdańsk Literary Meetings, we will stage In Translation, a monodrama performed in the Polish Sign Language by deaf actor and poet Adam Stoyanov. After the production, we will talk with its authors.

All events taking place as part of the festival are free of charge.
Admission to the award gala is by invitation only. Invitations will be available from 11 April from the City Culture Institute.

PLEASE NOTE that the meetings will not be translated into English.

Patrons of the event: Gdańsk City of Literature, the Embassy of Ireland in Poland, the European Commission Representation in Poland, Mieroszewski Centre, Versopolis, Austrian Cultural Forum, Czech Centre Warsaw, Polish Literary Translators Organisation, European Solidarity Centre, Tygodnik Powszechny