Living in Translation: Polish Writers in America (Studies in Slavic Literature and Poetics 40) (Studies in Slavic Literature & Poetics)

Living in Translation: Polish Writers in America discusses the interaction of Polish and American culture, the transfer of the Central European experience abroad and the acculturation of major representatives of Polish literature to the United States. Contributions written by American specialists in Polish Studies tell the story of contemporary Polish expatriates who recently lived or are currently living in the U.S. These authors include directors/screen writers Roman Polanski and Agnieszka Holland, the Nobel Prize laureate poet Czesław Miłosz, theatre critic Jan Kott, prose writer Jerzy Kosinski, essayist Eva Hoffman, and poet/translator Stanisŀaw Barańczak. Living in Translation presents these and other writers in terms of the duality of their profiles resulting from their engagement in two different cultures. It documents problems encountered by those who became expatriates in response to a totalitarian system they had left behind. And it revises and updates the image of the Polish exile authors, refocusing it along the lines of culture transfer, border straddling, and benefits resulting from a transcultural existence.

Halina Stephan is Professor of Russian and Polish Literature and Director of the Center for Slavic and East European Studies at Ohio State University. She is an author of books LEF and the Left Front of the Arts (1981), Mrozek (1996), Transcending the Absurd: Prose and Drama of Sławomir Mrozek, (1997), and an edited volume Zycie w przekładzie (2001). Her articles focus on Russian avant-garde literature, Russian science fiction, Polish drama and émigré literature.