Ireneusz Kania, René Koelblen and Stanisław Waszak won the Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński Translation Awards funded by the Mayor of Gdańsk
Ireneusz Kania, the polyglot translator working with more than a dozen languages – including Sanskrit, Tibetan and Hebrew – received the 2023 T. Boy-Żeleński Translation Award granted by the Mayor of Gdańsk for lifetime achievement. The award in the single work category, for a translated book published in the last two years, went to René Koelblen and Stanisław Waszak for their brilliant translation of Georges Perec’s A Void. On 21 April, at St. John’s Centre, Aleksandra Dulkiewicz, the Mayor of Gdańsk, presented the awards to the winners.
Ensuring circulation between literatures, translation initiates new styles, weaves a dense network of inspirations, and broadens our understanding of the world and people. The Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński Translation Award of the Mayor of Gdańsk, granted every two years, recognizes the mastery of literary translators. It also has a financial dimension: winners receive PLN 50,000 (lifetime achievement award) or PLN 30,000 (translation of a single work). Winners of this year’s edition were selected by the Award Committee, composed of: Carlos Marrodán Casas, Anna Korzeniowska-Bihun, Piotr Paziński, Julia Różewicz and Anna Wasilewska (committee chair).
“Ireneusz Kania – translator, essayist and polymath – translated over a hundred books from sixteen modern and ancient languages. In this impressive bibliography, there are no accidental or trivial titles representing impermanent and fad-prone popular culture. These works, belonging to the classical canon of the humanities, were carefully selected according to a certain key and translated from the original languages. They come from the intersection of the history of ideas and cultures, the philosophy of religion, mythology and historiosophy. Most of Kania’s translations represent the essayist prose genre, although the list also includes letters, memoirs and maxims. Kania introduced entire cultural areas to the Polish-language sphere, translating from Tibetan, Hebrew, Romanian, Greek, German, French, and Italian,” reads the laudatory speech in honour of Ireneusz Kania.
Ireneusz Kania was born in 1940 in Wieluń. While completing Romance studies at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków, he simultaneously studied Oriental languages (Hebrew, Chinese, and Sanskrit). During that time, he played competitive sports (he is still physically active). He debuted in 1972 in Przegląd Orientalistyczny. In subsequent years, he also translated from English, German, French, Russian, Romanian, Italian, and Sanskrit. Between 1983 and 1988, he ran a private Tibetan course. In the 1990s, he taught literary translation at the Jagiellonian University’s Study of Literature and Art. Kania holds several awards and medals for his translation achievements, the latest being the T. Boy-Żeleński Translation Award granted by the Mayor of Gdańsk.
“Without translators, people who combine excellent craftsmanship and sophisticated art, we would be mute and blind. Translators are called ‘second authors’ for a reason. The Award gala is a perfect opportunity to thank the authors of the festival, its protagonists – the translators and authors of source texts – and our faithful audience. Let’s keep finding other people, ourselves, truth, goodness and beauty in translation. And let’s read!,” said Aleksandra Dulkiewicz, Mayor of Gdańsk, to the guests, shortlisted translators and winners.
The award in the single work category for a translated book published in the last two years went to René Koelblen and Stanisław Waszak, who translated Georges Perec’s A Void from French into Polish (publ. by Lokator, 2022).
“Perec’s 300-page detective novel is the longest lipogram in world literature, entirely devoid of the letter ‘e’ – the most popular French vowel. (…) Both translators delivered a seemingly impossible feat, incredibly rearranging Perec’s puzzles, launching a ruthlessly perfect machinery, where the absence of ‘e’ forced them to intervene in the structure of the text, changing the numbers of individual parts and chapters. Both translators managed to overcome an enormous amount of technical problems while salvaging all allusions, ambiguities and subtexts and preserving the rhythm of this perfectly orchestrated prose, which does not shy away from the grotesque and dark humour,” reads the laudatory speech for René Koelblen and Stanisław Waszak.
Stanisław Waszak has over 30 years of experience as a journalist. Recently he has also taken the post of deputy director of the Warsaw office of Agence France-Presse. He is a translator and author of song adaptations into Polish. For three years, he co-taught song translation classes with René Koelblen at the Institute of Romance Studies, University of Warsaw.
René Koelblen is an engineer, graduate of the École Centrale de Paris (Faculty of Applied Mathematics). Between 1983 and 1985, he taught French at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń. Since 1986, he has been associated with the IT sector. He is a translator and author of song adaptations into Polish (Polish-French, French-Polish). For three years, he co-taught song translation classes with Stanisław Waszak at the Institute of Romance Studies, University of Warsaw. He translated Jolanta Kurska’s extended interview with Adam Michnik and Bernard Kouchner into Polish (“Rozmowy w Awinionie”).
Other translators shortlisted for the single translation award in 2023:
• Krzysztof Majer (English) for his translation of David Markson’s Wittgenstein’s Mistress, publ. by PIW, 2022
• Sebastian Musielak (Finnish) for his translation of Juhani Karila’s Fishing for the Little Pike, publ. by Marpress, 2021
• Kamil Pecela (Lithuanian) for his translation of Kristina Sabauliaskaitė’s Silva rerum IV, publ. by Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2022
• Anna Sawicka (Catalan) for her translation of Mercè Rodoreda’s In Diamond Square, publ. by Marginesy, 2022
• Tomasz Swoboda (French) for his translation of Marcel Proust’s Sodom and Gomorrah, publ. by Officyna, 2022
• Aga Zano (English) for her translation of Bernardine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other, publ. by Wydawnictwo Poznańskie, 2022
‘Found in Translation’ Gdańsk Literary Meetings present the possibility of looking at literature from a slightly different angle, where translation acts as a springboard to talk about the world and the dynamic changes it undergoes. On the one hand, translations are an intimate confrontation with the text; on the other, a way of building relationships between people, cultures, and art disciplines. This year’s edition (20-22 April 2023) focuses on the translation of dramatic works. The event is organised by the City Culture Institute in Gdańsk. The Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński Translation Award is funded by the city of Gdańsk.
