We know the winner of the 2025 Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński Translation Award for Lifetime Achievement, as well as the nominees for best book translation
Carlos Marrodán Casas – a translator and promoter of Spanish-language literature and one of the pioneers of the Latin American literary boom in 1970s Poland – has been named winner of the Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński Translation Award conferred by the Mayor of Gdańsk. The jury awarded him the prize in recognition of his lifetime contribution to literary translation. Eight more translators have been nominated for the best translation of a book published in the last two years: Marcin Gaczkowski (Ukrainian), Agnieszka Kowaluk (German), Mateusz Kwaterko (French), Filip Łobodziński (Spanish), Katarzyna Okrasko and Agata Ostrowska (Spanish), Katarzyna Skórska (Italian) and Tomasz Swoboda (French). The awards ceremony will take place on 25 April during the ‘Found in Translation’ Gdańsk Literary Meetings.
By enabling circulation between literatures, translation initiates new styles, creates a web of inspiration and broadens our understanding of the world and of others. The Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński Translation Award recognises the mastery of literary translators. Established in 2013, the award is presented biennially to living authors of translations from foreign literature into Polish.
Jury members (from the left): Zofia Szachnowska-Olesiejuk, Anna Korzeniowska-Bihun, Piotr Paziński, Anna Wasilewska, Wojciech Charchalis) | photo by Bartosz Bańka
FIRST JURY DELIBERATIONS
On 3 March, the award jury met in Gdańsk for the first deliberations of the sixth edition of the competition (the next session is scheduled for 24 April). The jurors selected the winner of the lifetime achievement award and – choosing from 85 submissions – shortlisted seven translations in the category of books published within the past two years.
‘This year’s submissions rarely included poor translations’, said the jury’s chair, Anna Wasilewska. ‘The high standard of entries shaped our evaluation criteria. We were particularly drawn to books that set the bar high – demanding not only linguistic accuracy and cultural sensitivity to the source text, but also inventiveness and the ability to meet the challenges of unruly prose in Polish’, she added.
In 2025, the jury panel comprises Wojciech Charchalis, Anna Korzeniowska-Bihun, Piotr Paziński, Zofia Szachnowska-Olesiejuk and Anna Wasilewska (Chair).
CARLOS MARRODÁN CASAS RECEIVES LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD FOR LITERARY TRANSLATION
photo by Renata Dąbrowska
In its justification, the jury noted:
Carlos Marrodán Casas was one of the key figures responsible for the Latin American literature boom in Poland in the 1970s. A tireless advocate of Spanish literature and an academic mentor to a whole generation of translators, he debuted in 1973 with his translation of Mario Vargas Llosa’s ‘The Cubs’. He went on to translate works by Gabriel García Márquez, Roberto Bolaño, Octavio Paz and Javier Marías, among others. Through his versatile command of Polish stylistic registers, Marrodán Casas has preserved the distinctive voice of each of these writers.
Born in 1948 in France, Carlos Marrodán Casas is a Spaniard who has spent nearly his entire life in Poland. He graduated in Polish philology from the University of Warsaw. For a time, he was affiliated with the editorial team of Nowe Książki and later taught at the Department of Iberian Studies at the same university. Since the mid-1980s, he worked in the Cultural Department of the Spanish Embassy in Warsaw, and from the mid-1990s was associated with Muza Publishing House, where he worked first as a translator and consultant, then as an editor. Translation is both his profession and his passion. He has translated into Polish works by authors such as Gabriel García Márquez (The Autumn of the Patriarch, Chronicle of a Death Foretold, Love in the Time of Cholera, Of Love and Other Demons, Memories of My Melancholy Whores), Mario Vargas Llosa (Captain Pantoja and the Special Service, The Green House, The Storyteller), Javier Marías (A Heart So White, Tomorrow in the Battle Think on Me, The Infatuations – co-translated with Wojciech Charchalis) and Roberto Bolaño (Distant Star). Carlos Marrodán Casas is also the co-translator (with Beata Fabjańska-Potapczuk) of The Shadow of the Wind by Carlos Ruiz Zafón, and has translated all of Zafón’s other novels in collaboration with Katarzyna Okrasko. His body of work also includes translations of theatre plays, poetry, and song lyrics.
NOMINATIONS FOR THE TRANSLATION AWARD FOR A BOOK PUBLISHED IN THE PAST TWO YEARS
According to the award’s regulations, the jury may nominate up to seven book translations published between December 2022 and November 2024. The titles were submitted to the competition by publishers, universities and a wide range of representatives from the literary community.
Following the jury’s decision, the 2025 nominations for the Translation Award are:
Marcin Gaczkowski (Ukrainian) for his translation of Valerian Pidmohylny’s The City (KEW, 2024)
‘The City’ by Valerian Pidmohylny poses a significant challenge for any translator, with its rich language, laced with irony and filled with references to 1920s Ukrainian realities. Marcin Gaczkowski rose to the occasion, capturing both the novel’s modernist style and its critical reflection on the protagonist’s social and psychological transformation. He conveys the author’s blend of laconicism and poetic imagery, as well as the revolutionary, transformative spirit of the Executed Renaissance.
Agnieszka Kowaluk (German) for her translation of Elfriede Jelinek’s Angabe der Person (W.A.B. 2024)
‘Angabe der Person’, as Elfriede Jelinek herself describes it, is ‘untranslatable’ – saturated with references to philosophy, literature and art. This dynamic, furious, at times delirious stream-of-consciousness, full of linguistic play, is masterfully rendered in Polish by Agnieszka Kowaluk, who preserves the style, rhythm and mood of Jelinek’s deliberate ‘untranslatability.’
Mateusz Kwaterko (French) for his translation of Théophile Gautier’s Caprices et zigzags (PIW 2023)
‘Caprices et zigzags’ comprises twelve unique travelogues – real or imagined – from the pen of the French Romantic writer, poet, dramatist and critic. Gautier subverts the conventions of travel literature with black humour, grotesque elements and digressive wanderings. In Mateusz Kwaterko’s translation, these meanderings resonate just as vividly and entertainingly as in the original.
Filip Łobodziński (Spanish) for his translation of Arturo Péreza-Reverte’s The Shadow of the Eagle (ArtRage 2024)
‘The Shadow of the Eagle’ is a heroicomic novella in which Arturo Pérez-Reverte playfully reworks the conventions of the historical novel. Full of humour and inventive linguistic turns, the book is masterfully rendered by Filip Łobodziński, whose translation is nothing short of exceptional.
Katarzyna Okrasko and Agata Ostrowska (Spanish) for their translation of Cristina Morales’s Easy Reading (ArtRage 2024)
Cristina Morales’s ‘Easy Reading’ is a linguistic firework – rich in linguistic registers, blending the idiolect of an anarchist commune with bureaucratic jargon and unafraid of bold, even provocative, yet sophisticated eroticism. A demanding translation task, completed with resounding success.
Katarzyna Skórska (Italian) for her translation Michele Mari’s You, Bleeding Childhood (Czarne 2024)
The short stories of Michele Mari, a major contemporary Italian author born in 1955 – writer, critic and translator, admirer of Gadda and Manganelli – appear in Polish for the first time in this volume. Mari evokes the props and scenery of childhood, including marbles, toy soldiers, jigsaw puzzles and his earliest reading experiences: comics and boys’ adventure novels. Ambiguous and densely allusive prose, full of literary references, rendered beautifully in Polish.
Tomasz Swoboda (French) for his translation of Marcel Proust’s The Prisoner (Officyna 2024)
Tomasz Swoboda once again takes on Tadeusz Boy-Żeleński, gifting Polish readers another volume of Proust’s monumental cycle. ‘The Prisoner’ intertwines lyrical love language, biting social satire and philosophical musings on the nature of art. In Swoboda’s hands, the text gleams with renewed brilliance.
The winner – or winners – will be announced on 25 April 2025 during the ‘Found in Translation’ Gdańsk Literary Meetings.
PREVIOUS WINNERS OF THE AWARD
2023 (lifetime achievement) – Ireneusz Kania (various languages)
2023 (single work) – René Koelblen and Stanisław Waszak for translating Georges Perec’s A Void from French into Polish (Lokator, 2022)
2021 (lifetime achievement) – Anna Przedpełska-Trzeciakowska (English)
2021 (single work) – Teresa Tyszowiecka blasK! for translating The African Origins of UFOs by Trinidadian poet and writer Anthony Joseph from English into Polish (published by Fundacja Korporacji Ha!art)
2019 (lifetime achievement) – Małgorzata ŁukasiewIcz (German)
2019 (single work) – Marcin Szuster for translating Djuna Barnes’ Nightwood from English into Polish (Ossolineum publishing house)
2017 (lifetime achievement) – Danuta Cirlić-Straszyńska (Serbo-Croatian)
2017 (single work) – Piotr Paziński for translating The Tale of the Scribe and Other Stories by Shmuel Yosef Agnon from Hebrew into Polish (Nisza publishing house)
2015 – Maryna Ochab (French)
The Award is funded by the City of Gdańsk and organized by the City Culture Institute. Awards in both categories are given during the ‘Found in Translation’ Gdańsk Literary Meetings – the present edition takes place on 24–26 April 2025.
