Polish Translation Slam

What happens when two translators work on the same text into the same language? How different can their translations be?

In this event, we bring together two translators, both of whom have learnt Polish to a very high level. 

Each of our translators has been given the same text to translate, namely an excerpt from “Ćwiczenia z obcości” [Exercises in Otherness], a short essay from Czuły Narrator [The Tender Narrator], a collection of essays by Olga Tokarczuk. Tokarczuk won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2018 and Czuły Narrator is her first book since winning the prize. It has not yet been published in English translation.

Our two translators have prepared their own translations of the text without conferring with one another. In this event, we will bring the two translators, and their respective translations, together, to compare the results.

Antonia Lloyd-Jones is a prizewinning translator of Polish literature into English, celebrated for bringing the work of Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk and other leading Polish authors to international readers. She has translated novels by Paweł Huelle and Jacek Dehnel, short stories by Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz, and non-fiction by Jacek Hugo-Bader and Wojciech Jagielski. Recipient of the Transatlantyk Award (2018) and the Found in Translation Award (2009, 2012), she is also a mentor for the Emerging Translator Mentorship programme supported by the Polish Cultural Institute and she has served as co-chair of the Translators' Association, shaping new generations of literary translators.

Siobhán McNamara holds an M.Phil in Literary Translation from Trinity College Dublin and a Postgraduate Diploma in Translation from Gaelchultúr/Coláiste na hÉireann. After studying Russian at undergraduate and postgraduate level in Trinity, she then attended Polish evening classes for several years and was also sponsored by the Polish government to take part in summer schools in Polish Language and Culture in Cieszyn, Krakow, and Warsaw. Her translation of Pawel Huelle's Arann Islands was published in volume 19, number 2, of Translation Ireland.

The event is free and open to everyone.

This event is organised in collaboration with the Embassy of the Republic of Poland in Dublin.