In the first episode of the Notes from Poland podcast, Stanley Bill talks to Jennifer Croft, the award-winning American translator of Poland's new Nobel laureate, Olga Tokarczuk.
In an in-depth interview with Jennifer Croft, Stanley Bill asks about Olga Tokarczuk's Nobel triumph; the masterpiece The Books of Jacob, which Jennifer is currently translating into English; the earlier novel Flights, for which Jennifer and Tokarczuk won the International Booker Prize in 2018; Jennifer's own writing, including her recently published memoir Homesick; the relation between writing and translation; and Jennifer's path into Polish culture.
Producer: Sebastian Leśniewski
In the first episode of the Notes from Poland podcast, Stanley Bill talks to Jennifer Croft, the award-winning American translator of Poland's new Nobel laureate, Olga Tokarczuk.
In an in-depth interview with Jennifer Croft, Stanley Bill asks about Olga Tokarczuk's Nobel triumph; the masterpiece The Books of Jacob, which Jennifer is currently translating into English; the earlier novel Flights, for which Jennifer and Tokarczuk won the International Booker Prize in 2018; Jennifer's own writing, including her recently published memoir Homesick; the relation between writing and translation; and Jennifer's path into Polish culture.
Producer: Sebastian Leśniewski
Hello. My name is Stanley bill, you're listening to notes from Poland. This week I'm talking to Jennifer Croft, the award winning translator of Poland's, new Nobel Laureate Olga Tokarczuk. We'll be talking about Tokarczuk's work, but also about Jennifer's own path into Polish culture. Notes from poland.com is the leading English language, source of news, insight and analysis on Poland. In this podcast, I look at the country from all angles, politics, history, culture and society. You can get more news and the deepest stories about poland@notesfrompoland.com
Speaker 2:[inaudible].
Speaker 3:Welcome to the first notes from Poland podcast. I'm Stanley bill. I'm the founder of notes from Poland and also the director of the Polish studies program at the university of Cambridge. In the coming series of podcasts, I want to explore a wide variety of Polish subjects in a few different ways. Sometimes I'll do interviews with interesting people like today. Sometimes I'll share my own perspectives on things that interest me in Polish, history, culture, and politics. We'll get regular news updates from notes from Poland, deputy editor, Monica[inaudible] in Warsaw, and we might even do some live events. So please join me on this podcast journey into Poland this week. My guest is Jennifer Croft. Together with Antonio Lloyd Jones. Jennifer is one of two translators who have brought into English the work of Olga Tokarczuk, the Polish novelist who will receive the Nobel prize in literature for 2018 next month in Stockholm. The Swedish Academy has awarded Tokarczuk the prize for, and I quote, a narrative imagination that within cyclopedia passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life. Tokarczuk is an extraordinary writer, loved by many readers in Poland, but also controversial in some circles. She has attracted negative attention and even death threats for her. Strong resistance to what she sees as simplistic models of self glorifying national history. She has not been popular with the current government. The culture minister has even become famous in the international media for confessing that he has not read her work well. Thanks to Jennifer Croft. We can read Tokarczuk's work in English. Jennifer is a translator from Polish, but also from Spanish, especially in its Argentine variety. But she's also a writer and a traveler. She originally comes Oklahoma in the United States, but she's lived in Chicago, Warsaw, Kraków, Paris, Buenos Aires, Los Angeles, New York, and other places. In 2018 together with Olga Tokarczuk, she won the International Booker Prize for her translation of the novel flats. This year. She's published her own first book, a memoir entitled homesick. Jennifer, welcome to notes from Poland.
:That was such an amazing introduction. Well, there's a lot to say. I had to cut it down. Um, I want to start, uh, with your reactions to the news of Olga Tokarczuk, uh, winning the Nobel prize in literature. Now you actually predicted this, uh, several years ago. Um, why or why did you think she was going to win?
Speaker 4:So, first of all just say that predicting it and being fairly sure that it was going to happen did not mean that I did not scream and run around my apartment at four o'clock in the morning LA time when I found out, thereby completely terrifying my two cats who never forgave me. Um, yeah, I w I really felt that she was going to win the Nobel prize in the same way that I told people as soon as flights came out a year before the Booker that I thought that she had a really good shot at winning the Booker. I think one of the main reasons why I felt sure that Olga was going to win all the prizes is this perfect balance. She managed us to strike between being supremely accessible to a general readership as well as critically acclaimed. And it's so rare for a writer to be able to do that, to be genuinely ambitious and undaunted by any kind of formal barriers or um, any other constraints that other people might run up against. Um, but also just writes in this beautiful, wonderful lyrical style that people really love. I mean, she has this project of speaking to people and I think that really works.
Speaker 3:I think you're absolutely right about that. It's something that always strikes me about Tokarczuk is that she's loved by readers in Poland. She, she wins reader popularity, uh, awards and she's loved everywhere she goes. When she has readings, there are people that are crowds of people that want, uh, her to sign, uh, uh, her books. And, but at the same time, as you say, she's critically acclaimed.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And that effect that she has on people at her readings also super transcends language barriers. I mean, she, she just manages to speak to people. People really gravitate towards her. And, um, and that is also a really uncommon phenomenon. Um, so I think just that ability to connect with people is kind of her, her greatest virtue. And then I think there are some thematic interests she has that would have seemed to me to also align pretty well with the Nobel committee's interests politically. Um, uh, philosophically. So, although of course that could be hard to predict, but, um,
Speaker 3:which ones in particular do you think may have appealed?
Speaker 4:I mean, thinking of the books of Jacob, which of course isn't out in English yet, but was first, the first translation of that to be published was the Swedish translation by Yon Henrik's fun. And, um,
Speaker 3:so that book was available to the judges.
Speaker 4:Yes, it was. And that's really Olga's masterpiece. I mean, who knows what she, I'm sure she's going to write many, many, many more books. I'm sure each one is going to be better than the last. But to date, this is really just such an impressive, quite extraordinary work of literature.
Speaker 3:Could you tell us about it actually, because you're working on translating it now. It's going to be in the hands of English readers, uh, perhaps next year. Uh, could you tell us, uh, describe this book to us? Books of Jacob, the masterpiece of Olga Tokarczuk published in 2014, uh, I believe in Poland.
Speaker 4:So it will be out in English in 2021. Um, and it's the story of a real historical figure named Jacob Frank who was the leader of a Jewish heretical sect in the 18th century. The book begins in 1752 and it follows a huge cast of characters as they are influenced by Jacob Frank and a number of very different ways, a lot of attention paid to the women in the story, which is also one of August kind of hallmarks. Um, so Jacob Frank is basically a cult leader and it's a really fascinating study in the Genesis of an extremely compelling and influential cult. Um, that also sheds a lot of light on the political and religious and social situations in the various places through which the frankest moved. Um, and it goes, it switches between perspectives so fluidly and also is always so attentive to language. Um, the characters are all speaking many different languages from Turkish to Hebrew to Yiddish to Polish, um, to French. And everyone is thinking somewhat selfishly and everyone's interests are somewhat different. And it's just, I've never quite read anything like it. I think when I first, when she first sent me the manuscript in 2014, my first association was with, uh, Roberto Bolanos 26 66, which has, you know, it was a book that I really admired.
Speaker 3:Yes. AThe great Chilean author.
Speaker 4:Yeah. Um, and that is also a book that is very international and
Speaker 5:Mmm.
Speaker 4:Relentless in its exploration of a different kind of violence. But, um,
Speaker 3:really, really struck me about the Olga's book, about the books of Jacob is the way in which the sights and sounds of this vast area between what's now Poland and what's now Turkey a few hundred years ago are brought to life so vividly in her prose. There's something very sensual about so many of the descriptions in the book. And I know that in prep in her, uh, quite fastidious preparation for the writing of the book, she traveled to Ukraine and, and, and various other countries, um, in which, uh, the, the, the book would take place or the, the, the modern countries, uh, uh, that following on from, from the action. Uh, and, and you can really feel that, that she's brought these scenes to life. The, the particular look of a river or the sound of a river, the particular smell of the grasses and flowers, um, of a, of a place. Uh, there's a great vividness to the way that, that she does that. Um, and then also the way in which the characters speak in very different voices. You talked about the way in which they each have their different concerns, but they are written as very different people simply in the types of words they use, the ways in which they express themselves. Um, is that a challenge at the moment as you work on the translation to reproduce the difference of those voices and those various characters?
Speaker 4:I thought it would be more of a challenge than it actually is because Olga has done such a great job that I just kind of have to follow her lead. But I will second, um, your emphasis on these central details. I mean, I think, um, I've also never read anything that is so consistent about reminding me of where I am and in what period I have found myself. And she's so great about, um, I mean there's such, there's the stakes are so high in this book and so many important things are happening, but she never lets you forget that when these people walk out of the meeting with a high up dignitaries, for example, they just step into, or Jacob frig is imprisoned for a while and Częstochowa and she describes perfectly this very chipped chamber, porcelain chamber pot that can scrape them at various times. Um, and all of the smells and most of them are terrible and, uh, and all of the noise, it's just, it's a, it is, that makes it also so exciting because as you say, it becomes so vibrant that you really feel like you're living this in a way that you couldn't possibly do if you were, um, merely reading the historical sources that all go studied for about a decade before writing this book.
Speaker 3:It really feels like she went to Istanbul in the 18th century. For example, you know, or that, that this, that this whole area, um, she's experienced, certainly she has in her imagination, but she puts it on the page in a way that, um, brings it to life for the reader. Um, so could you tell us a bit more about the translation experience with Olga Tokarczuk? So you and I'll go together, won the International Booker Prize for Flights. So Bieguni, uh, the Polish title. Um, so the, the process of translating itself, was there much dialogue between the two of you? Uh, that's one question. And then secondly, uh, you won this prize together and therefore your contribution was very important, was recognized by the prize. So I'm interested in how you see your contribution to, uh, that book as it presented itself in English, and how, how you felt you were shaping it into English and presenting it to the English reader. The most striking thing is that you changed the title. Um, so you've, you've really made a big impact on the way the book has been received. Um, how did you think about that as you were going along and how did you talk about it with Olga Tokarczuk?
Speaker 4:So my understanding of what it means to be a translator has also changed pretty radically in the time that I've been doing it. I, I began translating from Russian when I was still in Tulsa as an undergraduate. And then I, I did a master's degree in fine arts at the university of Iowa and literary translation. And at that time I still understood, I mean, I was 19 when I started that program. I still understood translation as doing a faithful rendition of a book that I liked, um, making as faithful copy as I possibly could. And not only do I no longer think that that should be the goal of just the translation itself, but also I have come to understand that the role that I want to have is a much more holistic one. And it's also the role that I feel that I need to have in order to, because if I'm going to translate something, there's no point in translating into a void. And that means that I have to also kind of fully represent the author and the work that shows others how much I believe in it and how it can speak to them. Um,
Speaker 3:so you're really thinking about the English language reader in this case? Um, from the very beginning of the process.
Speaker 4:Yeah. So I mean, I started publishing, I came across August short stories when I was still at the university of Iowa. She had published a collection in 2001 and I really loved a lot of those stories and I published a couple of those early on. And then when Bieguni came out in 2007, I thought it was just so exciting and I really wanted to work on it. I met with Olga, um, but she has never been one to certainly not micromanage her translators. She also has many translators in many different languages. So I'm trying to oversee all of that work would be impractical in any case. But she really is the kind of writer who, when she's done with the book, she's done with it. And I think that's a really great attitude to have. Um, she's always kind of onto the next challenge. So she didn't get too involved in the translation itself. And I started out just publishing a few excerpts here and there, which I thought, I thought at the time that that would be enough. The first excerpt I published was in 2009. Um, and then I, then I got X that was in a journal called exchanges, which was a small journal. And then I started to find bigger places. I published excerpts of flights in bomb and N plus one, um, and the Brooklyn rail and just like slightly larger audiences thought that would help. Started meeting with editors and corresponding with editors. And I consistently got the response that this was just not going to appeal to Americans because it was too slow and it was a little bit confusing what the structure of the book was.
Speaker 3:Maybe you can quickly tell the listeners about those who haven't read the book a little bit about that structure or how the book unfolds while you're moving through this explanation.
Speaker 4:Sure. So Olga describes flights as a constellation novel. The idea being that she gives the reader a number of fragments and philosophical musings and anecdotes and longer stories that are on the surface, maybe not that connected to one another. They are, but they're not there. You don't have the same characters, um, throughout all of them. And, um, what she wants is for the reader to actively participate in the process. In other words, it is akin to walking out and looking up at the night sky and seeing this chaos of stars and making, drawing connections between those points of light in order to kind of make something meaningful for yourself. So it's the similar to the production of constellations, um, in that the reader can choose how, how the book is going to speak to her, which I think is a really cool idea. Um, and I in general, I really like books that ask the reader to kind of talk back. I don't, um,
Speaker 3:the, I mean, this book as you serve is a good example of what you were describing earlier, which is the ambitiousness of the book from a formal point of view. And yet at the same time, uh, the way in which it, it manages to stay accessible and interesting and appealing, um, to a broad number of readers.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I mean, people, the response since the book or since it got some publicity has been overwhelming. People really like this book. So all of these editors who told me for a full decade that no one knows ever they're going to read it, are really kicking themselves now. But for me, um,
Speaker 3:this is the translator as champion for a book. This is the role you played.
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean, and also for a long time, Olga didn't have an agent, which in the Anglophone world is kind of impossible to pull off. So I was also in a way acting as that kind of champion too. I got grants, I wrote, um, pieces about her writing.
Speaker 3:So you changed the title, um, from Bieguni um, in Polish, which I'll let you, uh, explain what that means to Flights. Um, so interesting idea. That's change of title. It's not the first time that's happened with a translated book, but could you tell us a little bit about what, why you did it and what the meanings are?
Speaker 4:Sure. Yeah. So oftentimes the title of a book is changed by the publisher. Um, I think this is something that a lot of people don't realize, and I didn't really realize that until relatively recently. Um, in my case, I had thought the working title of Flights was Runners for many years, and that had been proposed, I believe, by the book Institute of Poland.
Speaker 3:And that's an approximate translation of what the word Bieguni means.
Speaker 4:So the, yes sort of, but the word in Polish is not the word for people who go jogging or people who run marathons. It's, um, it refers also to a sect, a religious sect. Um, in this case, a Russian Orthodox sect that believed that you had to remain in constant motion in order to escape the devil. And that comes up, of course, in the book, um, in the titular story in particular.
Speaker 3:So Olga is very interested in religious sects in general. We can see this. Yes.[inaudible].
Speaker 4:Yeah, she's fascinated by religion. Um, so I hated the title runners because it in English runners is so big now. And I thought the Polish title, because it has this root egg, which is recognizable to all speakers of Slavic languages as having to do with running. People have a sense of what it is, but you would still, most people would still have had to Google that word and there wasn't even a separate Wikipedia entry about it and Polish. Um,
Speaker 3:so it's, it is an esoteric title in a way.
Speaker 4:It's an esoteric title and I wanted something that would, that would do exactly what I described Olga's writing us doing in general. So I wanted something that would be simultaneously kind of intellectually inviting but also accessible. So a simple word like the root bieg, um, that would maybe connote other associations for people. So obviously this title doesn't refer to just plane travel. Um, yeah. And I tried to also then incorporate that into the translation by using the verb to flee and which I also think is an important, you know, that's an important theme and flight sentence. An important team for Olga, this idea of having to flee for various, having to escape. Um, and that's such an important topic of conversation in general in 2019. Um, yeah. And then phrases like flights of fancy, um, and others. So I just, I wanted something that would be kind of sparkly and associative in the way that I felt the book is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think it worked extremely well. And, uh, I think I, well I remember Olga, uh, a saying at the one of the Booker ceremonies, I think even that th the book had also taken on a new resonance in the aftermath of the migration crisis in Europe. Uh, and that your, your title in a way really spoke to that in a, in a way that the original title may not quite as clearly. And I think she even said that if she were to rewrite the novel, she would certainly be including, um, an element of refugees in there, which is, which is not in there at present, but the way in which the book in your translation and in this new version of it. So quite a long time after the publication of the original Polish version, um, had taken on new meanings for new readers. Okay, we're going to take a short break now and when we come back, we'll be talking about the difference between writing and translating and finally about Jennifer's path into Polish culture.
Speaker 1:There has never been a more important time to understand poland@notesfrompoland.com. We're dedicated to providing comprehensive coverage of Polish, current affairs, society, culture and history, as well as regular analysis and opinion from a wide range of expert authors. But we can't do all this without your support. Every donation to our independent nonprofit foundation helps our editorial team to create new content from breaking news stories to deeper insight pieces. By supporting our work, you'll be part of our mission. To bring the full picture on Poland to the world with no pay wall. Please consider making a donation@notesfrompoland.com
Speaker 3:you are a writer and a translator. And so you've just published your first, uh, book, uh, the memoir, uh, homesick. Um, perhaps you can tell us a little bit about it, but also I'm very interested in how you view the difference between writing and translating, how you would compare these two, um, creative acts, which are sometimes brought together. And I think there's a greater appreciation for the translators, art and the prize you won together with Olga Tokarczuk. The International Booker Prize very much acknowledges the writer and the translator together on the same level. Um, and so that's something that we've, we've seen in recent times. How do you compare these two creative acts?
Speaker 4:I always thought of translation as a kind of apprenticeship and writing and I always chose books to translate that really spoke to me on a, on a kind of emotional level, but also on an intellectual level and books that I thought would be able to teach me something about how I was eventually going to write. Um, and it took me a long time and a lot of experiments to come to a style that I felt really worked for me. But translating along the way was essential, I would say. And I was very mindful of what elements I was taking from each writer I was working with. Um, and also the elements that I was taking from the particular languages. Like I am fascinated by the Slavic grammars. I have always been a real grammar nerd when it comes to my studies of the Slavic languages. So I love, um, the fact that
Speaker 3:you taught Polish by the way at Northwestern university in Chicago, did you not?
Speaker 4:I did, yes.
Speaker 3:So your knowledge of Polish grammar, um, is serious?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean I, well I started, part of what homesick is about is how I started studying languages and I really started by learning Russian grammar and, and I was really fascinated from, from the beginning by the fact that, um, Slavic languages have grammatical case, which English of course you used to have, um, and other languages have as well. But what that means is that you can change, you cha have to change the ending of a noun in the same way that we might change the end of a verb to show who's doing what, um, or how many people are doing it. So because the form of the noun changes in the sentence to indicate its function, it frees up word order in a way that we don't have an English. So I have always really loved that idea that in order to emphasize something or even to generate micro suspense in an individual sentence, you can play around with the order of the words and thereby change the order in which you convey the information you need to convey. Um, so that was something that I also tried to introduce into my own writing in English. I tried to play around with the syntax. Very interesting as much as they could.
Speaker 3:Final question for you. Can you tell us a bit about your own path into Polish culture?
Speaker 4:So I, I started studying Polish at the university of Iowa and I studied Polish pretty intensively here for, I say here because I'm currently teaching a translation workshop at the University of Iowa. So many years later. I studied intensively for two years and then I got a, there's a grant in the U S called a foreign language and area studies grant. So I got that to go to off for the summer. Um, right after I finished my MFA in 2003 and then I got also for that, for that academic year, um, a Fulbright to go to the university of Warsaw and to translate contemporary women writers from Polish into English. Um, so that was really, it was such an interesting time to be in Poland. Um, just before justice Poland was trying to decide in fact whether or not to join the EU. Um, and things changed, of course, fairly significantly after Poland did join the EU. Cities look very different from how they did. I mean, I'm a little bit,
Speaker 3:you were there for that transition.
Speaker 4:I was there for that transition. I'm, I was going to say, I'm sure that you might share a little bit of my jealousy of people who were there before, like before. That must've also been such an interesting time and it must be so interesting to be able to compare. Um,
Speaker 3:but the, the change from the early two thousands even that you're talking about to today is just absolutely enormous. Uh, and, and you were there of course, in a, in a period where that really rapid change began, which was around the time of the accession to the European union.
Speaker 4:Yeah. And then
Speaker 3:I think about 10 years passed, so then I started going pretty frequently to crack go. Um, the reason being that this Polish book Institute is headquartered in Krakow. Ah, they've only now just opened a residency and wore a software translators, but they offered this great program, um, in this beautiful villa, uh, not in the city center of Krakow, but on these beautiful grounds where translators could go and work on their projects,
:Kraków treats writers and translate as well, doesn't it?
Speaker 4:Yes. Um, it's a city of literature, much like Iowa city,
Speaker 3:like Iowa city. And so how long did you spend in Kraków?
Speaker 4:Mmm,
Speaker 3:altogether. Cause you've been back and forward a few times.
Speaker 4:Yeah. I mean I spent several whole summers there as well as a full year academic year there. Um, I'm not sure exactly how long it, I go back pretty frequently though. There are also conferences sometimes. I mean I always spend up, I'm going to crack on a few weeks. I always end up passing through Krakow at least. Um, but, but a lot about a decade passed between when I, um, lived in Warsaw and when I returned to Warsaw, which actually I don't, I can't explain how that happened because I really liked Warsaw and I was really interested in more. So somehow I had just kept, um, being taken to Krakow for reasons external to my, um, desires.
Speaker 3:Kraków has a pull of a certain kind. So you, but you go back, you go back regularly and you stay in contact with the Polish culture and with the Polish language. Is that important for you, translating from Polish that you're actually in contact with living language by being there?
Speaker 4:Yeah, I mean that is, that was certainly part of my initial project as a translator. I felt that I would only work from a language if I could live in a country where that language was spoken. And that's actually why I only for now translate from Argentina and Spanish because they've never lived in another Spanish speaking country. So I feel like I wouldn't really understand the little, the daily rhythms of the way that people speak and so forth. I think that I have spent less time in Poland recently then I would like to have, if I were going to be taking on new writers. I've been working with Olga for such a long time now, um, that I kind of feel like are, I almost feel like our relationship is independent of my relationship with Poland, which is a complex relationship. Um,
Speaker 3:so Olga's literature and her literary language make up their own land in a way that you're very familiar with. And so you feel that you're always there to some extent.
Speaker 4:Yes. But that being said, I do, I do go back to, I have gone back to Poland at once a year and often more and I'm about to go spend two weeks then[inaudible] so, um, and I'm going again in may for two weeks to Wrocław. So yes. I,
Speaker 3:so in Wrocław, will you be doing some things with Olg there? Is there, are there some events?
Speaker 4:Not events, hopefully. I hope I don't have to do a bunch of readings because I'm, what I'm trying to do is try to finish the translation of books of Jacob, which I have to turn in at the end of the year. Um, so I'm going and hopefully I can just ask her a few final questions and, um, it'll just be really inspiring to be there and see all of these, um, quotes of August's work that they have put around Wrocław and just all of the, that celebratory atmosphere. And then from there I'm flying to Stockholm. Um,
Speaker 3:so you'll be there for the Nobel a ceremony.
Speaker 4:Yes. I'm going for this speech, which is, and December seven and the ceremony on December 10th and I'm co translating that speech with Antonia Lloyd-Jones.
Speaker 3:Wonderful. Wonderful. So, so the, the Nobel address itself, you'll be, you'll be translating together with Antonia. Yes. Yes. Okay. That's very fitting. Um, the two of you have obviously made this great contribution, um, to Olga's reception in the English speaking world, created the reception of a auger to car took in the English speaking world. Uh, well, Jennifer, it's been an absolute pleasure to talk to you today. We're all going to be waiting with great anticipation for the books of Jacob. Um, and I also warmly recommend to listeners to, to look out for Jennifer's own book, uh, her memoir homesick. Thanks for joining us notes from Poland. Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 6:[inaudible]
Speaker 1:did you not publish a translation of a Semper reflections in the New York times as well? Yeah, that's a good question. We might have to cut. We'll cut this bit out and we'll put it in the bloopers up yet.
Speaker 2:[inaudible]
Speaker 1:all right. Going to, I can't what I'm going to say at the beginning.
Speaker 2:[inaudible].