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Livestreamed on this page on Friday 25 September 2020 at 10 a.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4) / 9 a.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 15:00 BST (London, UTC +1) / 16:00 CEST (Berlin, UTC +2).

International
Friday 25 September 2020

A Flight of Tokarczuk Translators

A conversation moderated by Susan Harrris featuring 10 of Olga Tokarczuk's translators

Friday 25 September 2020

PEN America, the Center for the Humanities at CUNY Graduate Center, and the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library presented A Flight of Tokarczuk Translators livestreamed on the global, commons-based, peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv on Friday 25 September 2020 at 10 a.m. EDT (New York, UTC -4) / 9 a.m. CDT (Chicago, UTC -5) / 15:00 BST (London, UTC +1) / 16:00 CEST (Berlin, UTC +2).

Join us for the finale of Translating the Future, a 20-week series of conversations between translators, with “A Flight of Tokarczuk Translators,” featuring 11 of Olga Tokarczuk's translators Olga Bagińska-Shinzato, Jennifer Croft, Barbara Delfino, Cristina Godun, Antonia Lloyd-Jones, Hikaru Ogura, Pavel Peč, Lothar Quinkenstein, Maria Skakuj Puri, Ostap Slyvynsky, and Julia Wiedlocha, and moderated by Susan Harrris.

When Olga Tokarczuk was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, readers all over the world were able to celebrate because her writing has been translated into dozens of languages. Tokarczuk has been hugely appreciative of the remarkable individuals who have done this work, writing "It's hard for me to express the relief that comes with being able to share authorship with someone," in an essay titled — in Jennifer Croft's translation —"How Translators Are Saving The World." This landmark event brings together 11 of these talented people—working from Polish to English, Japanese, Hindi, Ukrainian, German, Czech, Norwegian, Italian, Brazilian Portuguese, and Romanian—to compare and contrast their experiences working with this challenging and dynamic author over the course of her career. This prismatic lens offers an extraordinary opportunity to examine the art of translation across languages and borders. Sponsored by the Boston University MFA in Literary Translation and the Princeton University Program in Translation & Intercultural Communication

The conversations will be hosted by Esther Allen and Allison Markin Powell. Viewers can submit questions during the livestream at [email protected].

Speaker Bios
Jennifer Croft is the author of Homesick and Serpientes y escaleras and the co-winner with Nobel Laureate Olga Tokarczuk of The International Booker for the novel Flights. She holds a PhD in Comparative Literary Studies from Northwestern University and an MFA in Literary Translation from the University of Iowa.

Antonia Lloyd-Jones has translated works by several of Poland’s leading contemporary novelists and reportage authors, as well as crime fiction, poetry, and children’s books. Her translation of Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by 2018 Nobel Prize laureate Olga Tokarczuk was shortlisted for the 2019 Man Booker International prize. She is a mentor for the Emerging Translators’ Mentorship Programme, and former co-chair of the UK Translators Association.

Ostap Slyvynsky is a Ukrainian poet, translator, essayist, and literary critic. He authored five books of poetry and was awarded several Ukrainian and international literary prizes. He translates fiction and non-fiction from Polish, English, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Belarusian, and Russian into Ukrainian. Among the authors that he has translated are Czesław Miłosz, Hanna Krall, Andrzej Stasiuk, Olga Tokarczuk, Mikołaj Łoziński, Ignacy Karpowicz, Derek Walcott, William Carlos Williams, James Tate, and Georgi Gospodinov. Slyvynsky’s translations have earned him the Polish Embassy’s translation prize (2007) and the Medal for Merit to Polish Culture (2014). Ostap Slyvynsky was the first program director of the International Literary Festival in Lviv in 2006–2007 and still organizes many literary events in Ukraine. Slyvynsky teaches Polish literature at Ivan Franko National University in Lviv as well as contemporary literatures of East Central Europe and courses on translation at Ukrainian Catholic University.

Barbara Delfino is an Italian translator who translates from Polish, Russian, French, and English into Italian. She is specialized in translation of fiction and non-fiction from Polish and Russian into Italian and among the authors that she has translated are Katarzyna Grochola, Hanna Kowalewska, Adam Michnik, Olga Tokarczuk, Mariusz Wilk, Ivan Turgenev, Evgenij Zamjatin. Since 2015 she is director of the literary prize "Premio Polski Kot" for the best work of the year translated into Italian from a Salvic language. The literary prize is an important event of the international Festival Slavika held in Turin every year in March, to which she collaborates for the organization of literary events.

Lothar Quinkenstein is a writer and translator of Polish literature, and teaches at the Intercultural German Studies at Collegium Polonicum in Słubice. Together with Lisa Palmes, he translated Olga Tokarczuk`s "The Books of Jacob" (2019). His translation of Olga Tokarczuk`s "Bizarre stories" will come out next spring. Last year, he published his second novel Souterrain, and recently a book with autobiographical prose: Wiesenzeit. In 2017 he was awarded with the Jabłonowski-Prize, in the same year, he received the Spiegelungen Prize for poetry.

Julia Wiedlocha holds an MA in Comparative Literature from the University of Oslo. She is the manager of Thorleif Dahls Kulturbibliotek foundation, and has recently started Meteor Forlag, an independent publishing house focusing on feminist fantastic literature. She is currently translating Olga Tokarczuk, Stanisław Lem, and Andrzej Sapkowski into Norwegian.

Hikaru Ogura is an associate professor of comparative literature in the department of Japanese Literature and Culture at Toyo University. She holds a PhD in Russian literature from the University of Tokyo, her lectures in comparative literature concern Slavic literature and culture. So far, she has translated four books by Olga Tokarczuk into Japanese. She is currently translating Olga’s Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.

Lisa Palmes specialized in Polish and German Studies in Berlin and Warsaw, and since 2008 has been working as a translator of Polish literature. She has collaborated with Lothar Quinkenstein on the translation of the autobiography of Ludwik Hirszfeld and on Olga Tokarczuk's The Books of Jacob, and they will be working together on her short story collection, Playing on Many Drums.

Maria Skakuj Puri is translator and academic, and nearly lifelong resident of Delhi, India, who has been diligently translating Tokarczuk’s works since 2013.

Pavel Peč is a Czech translator from English and Polish and teacher of foreign languages. After graduating from Palacky University, he received a translation fellowship at the Book Institute in Kraków, Poland, and stayed behind in the city for five more years, teaching Czech for foreigners. Among the authors that he has translated into Czech so far are Krzysztof Varga, Paweł Huelle, Olga Tokarczuk, Zygmunt Miłoszewski, Stephen King, etc. His main areas of focus in translation are prose, drama, visual arts and AV media, film and TV. He also interprets at international film festivals. He currently lives in the town of Český Těšín, Czech Republic, just a few hundred meters from the Czech-Polish border on the Olza River.

Olga Bagińska-Shinzato is a translator, literary scholar, linguist, and Brazilianist. She graduated from University of Warsaw and University of Brasília where she majored in Literary Studies. She currently lectures on Brazilian literature and Brazilian Portuguese language at the Faculty of Modern Languages at the University of Warsaw. Co-founder of the Brazilian Studies Department at the Institute of Iberian and Latin American Studies (UW). Author of literary translations to Brazilian Portuguese (Olga Tokarczuk's Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead, Flights, Andrzej Sapkowski's Witcher Saga, Polish 20th and 21st century poetry, children's literature: A.Mizielinska and D.Mizielinski's Maps, Piotr Socha's The Book of Bees).

Cristina Godun is an Associate Professor of Polish language within the Department of Russian and Slavic Philology at the Faculty of Foreign Languages and Literatures, University in Bucharest, author of a monograph on Tadeusz Różewicz’s dramaturgy (Teatr Tadeusza Różewicza, București, 2008), A contemporary grammar of Polish language. The morphology of nouns and determiners (București, 2009), The Phonetics, Phonology and Morphonology of Polish Language (București 2010), co-author to three dictionaries of Polish and two textbooks for learning Polish. She has translated 30 books (from English and Polish) of prominent writers (i.e. Andrzej Stasiuk, Olga Tokarczuk, Witold Gombrowicz, Szczepan Twardoch, Lidia Ostałowska, Mariusz Szczygieł, Marek Krajewski, Zygmunt Miłoszewski etc.). Her translation of Olga Tokarczuk's Drive your Plow over the Bones of the Dead was awarded with the Special Prize for Translation for 2019 from the Writers' Union of Romania.

Susan Harris is the editorial director of Words Without Borders and the co-editor, with Ilya Kaminsky, of The Ecco Anthology of International Poetry. She was formerly editor in chief at Northwestern University Press, where she founded the Hydra imprint in literature in translation and [published Imre Kertesz, Herta Muller, and Olga Tokarczuk before their Nobel Prizes in literature. She] was Olga Tokarczuk's first US publisher.

***

Esther Allen: Welcome. I'm Esther Allen and I teach at City University of New York. With me is Alison Markin Powell, who translates Japanese literature and works with the Penn Translation Committee. She and I are co-organizers of "Translating the Future," and today is our super-duper, final finale, grand marquee extravaganza event.

Allison Markin Powell: Yes. Thank you, Esther. And thank you all for joining us for what was always meant to be the highlight of this conference. Today's event, "A Flight of Tokarczuk Translators," which in case you didn't know, the group word for Tokarczuk Translators is a Flight, has taken various forms. For the originally intended in-person conference we thought we were being ambitious by inviting five of Olga Tokarczuk's translators to New York to appear together. Mind you, we began planning this before she won the Nobel Prize in literature last fall. Then once we transitioned to this virtual format, it was Jennifer Croft, one of her English translators who encouraged us to go big. And now this morning, which is variously afternoon, evening, and night for the translators gathered here, we've assembled 10 of Olga's translators to take part in a conversation about the joys and challenges of bringing her work into their languages for readers all around the world.

Esther: ”Translating the Future" commemorates the 50th anniversary of The World of Translation, a conference that took place in New York in May of 1970 and was billed as the first international conference on literary translation held in the United States. The 1970 conference featured Isaac Bashevis Singer, who had not yet been awarded the Nobel Prize at that point. We wonder who among the participants in the 2020 conference may eventually receive those laurels. We are very fortunate today to have as our moderator, Susan Harris, the Editorial Director of the online magazine "Words Without Borders," the essential online magazine "Words Without Borders". and the first editor to publish Olga Tokarczuk's work in English translation in the United States. She acquired "House of Day, House of Night" in Antonia Lloyd-Jones' translation for Northwestern University Press way back in 2003. Susan barely blinked when we asked her to conduct a Zoom conversation among 10 people working in multiple languages and joining us from across multiple countries. The translators will introduce themselves when the program begins. We also encourage you to read each of their bios on the Center for the Humanities website.

Allison: We are grateful to have several sponsors for this conversation, and would like to offer sincere thanks to the Princeton University Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication. Boston University Center for the Humanities, and its a newly launched MFA in literary translation. The East Central European Center at Columbia University. And the Polish Cultural Institute in New York for their generous support of today's program. We will soon hear welcoming remarks from the Director of PCI NY, Robert Jesionowski.

Esther: As always, today's conversation will be followed by a Q&A; please email your questions for any or all of the Tokarczuk translators and for Susan to: [email protected]. We'll keep questions anonymous unless you note that you would like us to read your name.

bAllison: ”Translating the Future" is convened by Penn America's Translation Committee which advocates on behalf of literary translators working to foster a wider understanding of their art and offering professional resources for translators, publishers, critics, bloggers, and others with an interest in international literature. The committee is currently co-chaired by Lynn Miller Lockman and Larissa Kaiser. For more information look for translation resources at www.Penn.org.

Esther: For those unable to join us for today's live stream or any of the other conference programs, recordings are and will remain posted on the Howell Round and Center for the Humanities sites as well as on Penn's archive. Before we turn things over to Robert, we'd like to offer our undying gratitude for this final time to our partners at the Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center CUNY, the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center, the Coleman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library and Penn America. And to our dear friends at Howell Round, in particular the inestimably wonderful Travis Amiel, who's superb work for the past four months has made these live streams possible. And now over to Robert Jesionowski of the Polish Cultural Institute, New York.

Robert Jesionowski: Hello, everybody. Thank you, Ester. Thank you, Alison, for your warm welcome. I'd like to to a very warm thanks to the organizers of today's event, Penn America Translating Committee as well as our partners, which names were already mentioned. So, well, I would like to to say that it is really, really great to be here among people who really love literature. From my personal record, I must tell you that many years ago I tried to be as close to literature as possible. So, when I was a student I decided to be a literature critic. And one of the first books that I tried to write something about was Olga Tokarczuk's first novel, which was called "The Journey of the People of the Book". I think that this is worth reminding this her first novel, because there were some motives which tend to be repetitive. They tend to, to recur in her following works, no matter which genre she chose as a tool for her writings. So, one of the motives, of the motives is traveling. Another one is it's literature itself, the book. So, if there's a kind of a mirror that that gathers not only personally human experience but a kind of collective memory, a kind of collective human experience, probably it has something to do with the philosophy of Carl Gustov Jung. And this, and this vision of literature as something really, really important which gives a kind of very, very deep insight into, into human, our humanity soul, the role of translators is obviously very much important. They are a kind of carriers of books, carriers of literature from one language to another. So I think that in case of this particular author, Olga Tokarczuk, your role is very much appreciated. I hope that your, today's discussion will be very fruitful and I'm looking forward to listen to it. And now I'm giving the virtual floor to Susan Harris. Thank you very much.

Susan Harris: Thank you, Robert. And thank you, Alison and Esther for arranging this wonderful event with our our flight of Polish translators, of Tokarczuk translators as Allison said, that is the collective noun for them. Olga Tokarczuk's work is read all over the world of course, but according to statistics compiled by the Polish Literary Translators Association, a total of 193 translations exist by as many as 90 translators, into 37 languages. The first Tokarczuk book to be translated was "E.E." translated into English in 1996. And the most recent is "Playing Many Drums," published last year in Albanian. To open our conversation wonderfully, we have a message from Olga Tokarczuk herself, to the participants, translated into English by Antonia Lloyd-Jones. "My dear friends, I am very happy to know "that I am the inspiration for your event. "The mere fact that I can connect people from a wide range "of countries of different ages and with various likes "and interests is a source of great joy for me, "a real compliment. "Literature really does have the power to unite. "We're the living proof of it. "I hope you'll have a wonderful time. "I'll be with you in spirit. "Love and best wishes from my travels. Olga." Now, each of our translators will introduce himself or herself, the language from which he or she translate, into which he or she translates. And will say a bit about what brought each of them to Polish and how they started translating Olga Tokarczuk's work. First up is another Olga, Olga Baginska-Shinzato, who translates into Portuguese.

Olga Baginska-Shinzato: Hello. Good morning, everybody. Good afternoon as well. My name is Olga Baginska-Shinzato and I translate to Brazilian Portuguese. I'm also a Brazilian, yes, I'm a translator. I teach at the University of Warsaw. I teach Brazilian literature, and my adventure with Olga Tokarczuk's work started a few years ago. Actually it started with some, I would say fascination with her work and the sort of affinity on the outlook of the world of life with crossing borders. And that fascination led me to "The Books of Jacob," and I think that everything started with "The Books of Jacob". I just, just as Olga said, that when she was writing the book, it seemed that the whole world was helping her write the book that the world needed. "The Books of Jacob" to be, to be written. And at some point I had a feeling that Brazil also, I don't know if needed or it, it just, needed to get to know Olga and needed to get to know Olga's work. So I did a sample translation of "The Books of Jacob," and I think that's how everything started. As to the Polish language, well, I'm Polish. So Brazilian Portuguese is my, I would say the language of my heart and my soul. And the language that I best can communicate in. And I think that's, that's it, so, thank you.

 

Thank you, Olga. Next up will be Jennifer Croft who translates into English. One of one of Olga Tokarczuk's two translators into English.

Jennifer Croft: Thank you, Susan. And before I say anything about me, I just want to say how much I have appreciated this really magnificent summer of fascinating programs on translation that Alison Mark and Paul and Esther Allen have organized so brilliantly and so industrially, industriously, sorry. And it's just it's been such a dispiriting time and this has been an unprecedented opportunity for collaboration and fascinating discussion every, every week. So I can't really say how much I've appreciated it, but I know a lot of people feel similarly. And I came to Polish in 2001. I don't have, I grew up only speaking English but I was very interested in Russian literature. And when I began graduate school at the University of Iowa, I had the opportunity to study Polish as well. And I knew that I wanted to translate contemporary women's writing when I came across Olga's short story collection, which was published in 2001, "Playing Many Drums" in the university library. And I kind of fell in love with her style and her ambitious yet very accessible grouping of thematic interest. And so I, I found that Antonia Lloyd-Jones had already translated some work by Olga. And I immediately wrote to her to, to kind of ask where she was with her translations, and if there might be any room for me to translate a story. And she was so incredibly generous and ended up introducing me to Olga and to many other people who have been so helpful in my career. And I published my first short story in 2005.

Susan: Thank you, Jenny. Next up, Barbara Delfino, who translates into Italian.

Barbara Delfino: Hello, everyone. I'm Barbara Delfino, and I'm one of the three of Olga's Italian translators. I knew Olga's novels when I was at the university. I was studying Russian and Polish exactly in this order. It was Russian by choice and Polish by chance. And at the end of my studies, I wrote a dissertation on the dream dimension in the first four Olga's novels. And in my dream dimension, there was the intention of becoming Olga's translator. And in fact, I did it. And the first book of Olga that I translated has been "Flights," that has the Italian title and now at this moment I'm translating "The Books of Jacob," so that will be published I think next year, or the summer, or in autumn; we're not sure. The experience of translating Olga's books and all, with the turns around with this translation, the experience is very amazing. It's really amazing for me because in my, I've never had such an experience in my 20 years of this kind of, of work in this field. And I'm very happy about this. And that's all.

Susan: Thank you, Barbara. Next, Cristina Godun, who translates from Romanian.

Cristina Godun: Hello, Susan. Good morning, everybody. My name is Cristina Godun. I'm Olga's translator into Romanian. And my journey with Olga Tokarczuk's work began in 2010 with the translating of "Flight," and has continued ever since with four other novels: "House of Day, House of Night," "The Last Tales," "Drive Your Plow Through the Bones of the Dead," and "Tales of the Bizarre," and I'm currently working on "The Books of Jacob". However, it's worth mentioning that "The Journey of the Book of People" and "Primeval and Other Stories" are Olga Tokarczuk's first two books to be translated into Romanian by two different translators. So, long before "Flights," in 2001, 2002. In my case, the publishing houses approached me. So I didn't have to to search for a publisher. And I guess that's because at that time, Olga Tokarczuk's work was already known in Romania. But there is a nine-year gap between "Flights" and the previous translations, though. That's also significant.

Susan: That’s interesting. Thank you, Cristina. Now, Antonia Lloyd-Jones. Olga Tokarczuk's first translator into English.

Antonia Lloyd-Jones: Hello, everyone from rather gloomy today Warsaw. I started off as a Russianist; I studied Russian. And in 1983, I found myself in Poland at the tail end of martial law. And it was really rather embarrassing to be speaking in Russian. So I sort of accidentally fell into learning Polish out of a need for political correctness in a sensitive situation. And sat in a field with my friends who were agriculture students who were chasing cows around the field while I read Tokarczuk in Polish. And gathered mushrooms in my skirt, because there was nothing to eat at the time. So, I somehow, something in me just clicked and I switched to Polish. I'd just graduated, and I just put all my energy into trying to learn this language. And didn't have much chance to study it. I kind of had to teach myself. And then everything in my life happens by accident. And I met Olga by accident because her agent in those days was a Dutch publisher called Adrian Von Risabike, and he and his wife were good friends of Olga and her husband, and they had decided to buy a house in the same area where Olga lived. And he invited me to come and stay, but he didn't explain that the house was actually uninhabitable and with a tree growing in the sitting room. So I arrived and he picked me up and explained on the way from Vaclav Airport out into the countryside that I couldn't actually stay at his house. So he was taking me to this writer's house. And the airline had managed to lose my luggage. So the first thing that happened to me was that I met Olga on the threshold of her house in Krajanow, in the countryside. And she gave me a toothbrush, a pair of pajamas, and a packet of paper disposable panties. And it's still a mystery to this day where they came from or how she came to have them or what on Earth they were about. But that was my introduction to that house. And I had absolutely no idea at that point that I was ever going to be her translator. But not that long after, the same agent managed to sell the rights for "House of Day, House of Night" to grant her publishing in London. And he recommended me and I came to translate that book about the house where I had been so warmly received. And that house became a part of my life. And it still is because I went back summer after summer and rode Olga's horse around the neighborhood, having strange adventures, which is another whole story about being chased by stallion. I'll tell you another time; not recommended. And it was really wonderful to know the house and know the place when I came to translate "House of Day, House of Night" because there's so much of it infused in that book. And now Olga has done a great deal of work at the house and organizes a big literary festival there. And I think we're all going to have somewhere to stay together and work quietly, thanks to Olga's generosity. Thank you.

Susan: Thank you, Antonia. Perhaps we'll get to the stallion story later in the conversation. And next up, Hikaru Ogura, who translates into Japanese.

Hikaru Ogura: Yes. Can you hear me?

Susan: Yes.

Hikaru: Yeah? Oh, uh-huh. Hello, everyone. My name is Hikaru Ogura. I will briefly tell you about my first encounter with Olga's works very briefly. When I was a graduate student, I had the chance to teach Japanese at University of Warsaw as a visiting lecturer for one year. And I had, after classes I spent lots of time touring the city. And I visited very often the village shops. And at one point I saw many, many copies of title, titles of same title laid out in promotional displays in every shop. It was "Playing on Many Drums" by Olga Tokarczuk. I didn't know her but I read it about 20 years ago and instinctively I knew that this also would be loved by Japanese readers. And that I would try to translate her works myself. Yeah. And after awhile, after returning to Japan, I sent several pages from "House of Day, House of Night," in my translation to a publishing house that was going to launch a new literature series. And the publishing house liked my translation and agreed to publish the book. Yeah, so, that's this: "House of Day, House of Night," in my translation. Yes, this is the first translation mine. And the second was "Flights" in 2014. But before the "Flights," I get the grant from my university and I could invite Olga to Japan. And I and my colleagues organized a lecture series in Japan. It was being 2013. It was really fun and we hope, we hope she will come back to Japan very much. And third was, third was "Primeval & Other Times" in Japanese. This was published in, this was published last year just after Nobel Prize last year. So it was very good promotion for this book. Yes. And a fourth is coming soon, in this November. But this is part, but that also in Japanese is coming soon. That is all. Thank you.

Susan: Thank you, Hikaru.

Hikaru: Thank you for inviting me.

Susan: Thank you, Hikaru. Now up we have Lisa Palmas and Lothar Kinkenstein who translate into German together.

Lisa Palmas: Hello, everyone. We're muted, okay. We're outside. Yeah, I thought it's better when we talk together because we have the mainly the same topics. My name is Lisa Palmas. I am translating from Polish into German since 12 years already. And I started to learn and study Polish because I had some Polish friends, and started to be interested in the language. And so I changed my profession and thought I could try something interesting. With Olga Tokarczuk of course I knew her translations very soon. But I never thought about translating her myself because she was, Poland was the guest country on the Frankfurt Book Fair in the year 2000, and after that the translations also from Olga Tokarczuk were published and the translator was always Esther Kinsky. And she now is writing herself, so when "The Books of Jacob" were looking for a translator she didn't want to do the work and asked me if I would be interested. So I started to see if I can find a publisher in German. And this is the part where Lothar and I were connecting together because after a really long time I was trying to find a publisher and the people were hesitating because the book is very big, at more than 1000 pages. So I thought about giving up. And then at this moment, Lothar asked me if I would mind if he also tries to find a publishing house. And then we tried to do it together. And I think all in all, after three years we found a publisher and now I give the voice to Lothar and he can tell the successful part of the story.

Lothar Kreidenstein: Hello, my name is Lothar Kreidenstein. I translate also from Polish into German, and I'm working as a university teacher in Slubice, Poland at an institution which is called Collegium Polonicum. So, when I'm sitting there at the office, I'm looking out the window right at the German/Polish border, which is a river there, the River Oder, Odra. An image of steadiness and change at the same time, I would say. And I feel myself very comfortable on both banks of this river, of this image of the border and this image of time actually. I'm also, between teaching and translation, I'm a writer myself, dealing mostly with some topics connected also to Poland. And yes, actually the story of the books, with "The Books of Jacob" was really interesting. And I don't want to use the word 'Chance' or 'Accident' because I think it was something, there was some hand directing behind it. What hand? I don't know. But something was there behind. We had translated already one book together, Lisa and me. This was Ludwig Hirsch and his autobiography. And this work was so inspiring as a tandem that we wanted to continue it. And we were looking for something long, let's say, so it would, it would be, it would be very suitable to work together on it. So we choose "The Books of Jacob". And there was this specific situation that Olga Tokarczuk for several years was not actually present in Germany, in the German language, because there was at a certain point a stop of the publications. And then we actually could bring her back with "The Books of Jacob". And this was the moment then one week I think after the publication of "The Books of Jacob" in Germany, she got the Nobel Prize, so this was all directed very well very precise. And since then we, we continue this work. And recently I translated "The Lost Soul" and "The Tales of the Bizarre". And now at the moment we are working on the next collection of stories together as a tandem once.

Susan: Wonderful. Thank you, Lothar and Lisa. Now we will hear from Pavel Petch who translates into Czech. Pavel?

Pavel Petch: I’m here. Hello.

Susan: Ah. There's Pavel.

Pavel: Hi, world. My name is Pavel Petsch. I come from the Czech Republic. I'm really grateful to take part in this wonderful gathering, although I have to say, I'm a little bit understanding for the other translators of Olga's into Czech, because there are about five or six of us, I counted so far. And of course we have a wonderful colleague that my my friends here know very well, it's Petra Vigloch, who says hello to you. And who has been translating books of Olga's over the last 20-plus years. Okay. So what was adventure with Olga's books? Actually, it is closely connected to Petra, who sort of gave me a call one day that he's not doing well with finishing on meeting the deadline of translating "Flights" into Czech. So we sort of cooperated, co-translated the book into Czech, into Czech together. And from that time on, I think it was the middle part of my interest in Olga. Because I had met her at various sort of, readings and stuff before. And I was interested in her. And it's very interesting, and I want to talk about the relation of Olga's to the Czech Republic. Of course, Antonia has, has mentioned the house, right? So, the house is very close to the Czech border. And I think Olga would say that she has a lot of friends, a lot of relations, and also Czech readers are sort of, very aware of the fact, correct me if I'm wrong, Antonia, that, you know she's a little bit of our writer in literature. So she's not considered, of course the interest in her is very, very strong among the Czech readership. And every book that gets translated, it gets immediate attention and so on. And she sort of counted into our home. And because Czech makes Nobel prize winners in literature, we only have one, sadly, it was a very good news in the Czech Republic that she got the Prize and she was awarded. But I think she's still looked upon as a part of our, of our world. So this was actually, I got to her work very naturally through that as a reader, fascinated once again with the magical sort of, world in her books. And I would say, I would never go to translate her work if it wasn't a short deadline . But I was very happy to take this, take up this job. Because I would otherwise be very shy. And I'm really glad I did because now here we are in a wonderful circle sort of, fellow translators from all around the world. And we can talk about Olga's work and it's wonderful. Also I would like to hello to Lothar who mentioned the Oder/Odra River. Actually I'm sitting 200 meters from the Olza River, which is sometimes mistaken too. But it is on the Czech/Polish border. And also I am in the divided town of Cieszyn or Teschen. So I can see a little bit of a similarity with Slubice, which I visited. I visited their university last year. Close parallels to that. And I think also Olga's world is sometimes placed on the borders like this. So thank you very much for having me.

Susan: Thank you, Pavel. Pavel, that's fascinating about the borders. Now we'll go to who Ostap Slyvynsky who translates into Ukrainian.

Ostap Slyvynsky: Hello. Hello from the other country neighboring with Poland from the other side. My story of the first meeting with Olga was, it was something I would call fantastic. When I, when I studied Slavic philology and at the university, Olga's books were something like the must-reads in Ukraine. She was really popular at that time. Her journey of "The People of the Book" and "The Primeval "and the Other Times" were translated into Ukrainian by very experienced translators. So I would never assume that I, one day I would join this brilliant company. But nevertheless, we, the Jung's students, philologists at university were ambitious enough that in year 2004, we started a very tiny literary festival in my city in Lviv. But we dared to invite Olga Tokarczuk to be one of the participants without any special hopes that she would come. All of a sudden, after two days she answered to our mail and she said, "Yes, I would come." In two days she was, she was in Lviv. She came very late in the evening with the last bus, tourist bus. She crossed us that very problematic Ukrainian/Polish border, very problematic at that time. And I remember the long hours when we were walking around the night city, looking for someplace where we could eat something. We found it finally, but this was my first meeting with Olga, and the first moment when I felt some very deep personal connection with Olga. And the next time we met, it was in 2009, when I was translating the "Flights" into Ukrainian and it coincided in a very interesting way with her work on "The Books of Jacob". She started the works, her work on the "Books of Jacob," and she carried out her writer's research in Ukraine because the, a big part of action in "The Books of Jacob" takes place in Ukraine. She came with her husband and it was our next, next meeting, and we continued our long walks around the Ukrainian cities, bigger and smaller looking for a very, very special things like very ancient Jewish cemeteries for example. Or some other very secret places. But it's another story. Probably we'll have some time to talk about it as well. Thank you.

Susan: Oh, Ostap, you have left us all in suspense. We may have, we may have to hear more about that later. Thank you, translators, all of you for telling your various stories. So, so fascinating to hear how each of you came to Polish and how each of you came to Olga's work. Now we'll move into a general discussion. Our first conversation, you all translate into such different languages. We wonder what are the challenges you faced with bringing Olga's writing into your language? Cristina, would you like to go first?

Cristina: I’m afraid that from my experience I cannot say I have encountered particularly challenging situations or cases of let's say, linguistic or cultural un-translating abilities. Because I simply relish translating Olga's work, and I think to dive into the text, it's like channeling her work. But I can dissociate a bit. I can say that a part of the difficulties that might arise in translating her novels, might be generated by her narrative being multi-threaded and multilayered with plenty of references to myths and legends, astronomy, astrology, religion, the arcane, you name it. And that requires for the translator to skillfully navigate such areas of expertise he's not necessarily familiar with. Another tricky aspect, I think, resides in Olga's language. I mean, at first glance, it's very accessible. However, it's also very rich in meaning. Her narrative is seemingly uncomplicated, yet the language is very vivid, poignant, natural, succulent, humorous. And that again requires from the translator the same richness, lightness, easiness of expression into his own language. Another thing that, that I've noticed is that her narrative is not built entirely on words or by words, but also by images. And again, that requires from the translator to recreate and to render this imagery into his own language and requires in-depth knowledge of one's own language. The fact that Olga Tokarczuk switches swiftly from one register to another, at the lexical level and navigate gracefully, or crossing gracefully literary genres also can be trying for the translator. And it requires in my opinion, a bit of a wide cultural horizon as well. So, yes, what can I say? Also, the storytelling, it doesn't follow a linear traditional timeline; it's like it mirrors in my opinion the human consciousness or the stream of consciousness. It's not linear, it's sometimes mingled, scattered. And I think Olga Tokarczuk captures this characteristic of human consciousness very, very well in her work. And it's not very easy to translate. Apart from that, I think-- It's very easy and very pleasant to work upon her texts. Really.

Susan: Thank you, Cristina. I'm interested. It's interesting that you chose the word navigate and talking about the horizons, because so much of Olga's work, as has been mentioned, is predicated on the notion of travel and movement. And Barbara, you also translated "Flights," which is one of Cristina's books. What kind of challenges did you find, Barbara, in your work on Olga's books?

Barbara: Okay, this is a matter about which we very often discuss with other colleagues that translated from other languages. Because Polish and in particular, Olga's novels, I'm adapting very often very short sentences. Very short but very striking. And reading a few words of her novels, you can feel deep emotion or someone, somewhat also a sense of consternation or pleasure, of deep pleasure. And this is a very big problem for us, for Italian translator because we usually use very long sentences, with a lot of commas, a lot of subordinate sentences. So, rendering in Italian, and giving to the Italian reader, the same affect that Olga Tokarczuk gives to her readers, it's very complicated sometimes. I remember when I delivered my first book translated from Polish, not from Olga, not of Olga, but of another Polish author, I delivered it to the publisher and he read it and they said, "Okay, now please transform it "with an Italian style." Because it's different. And I tried that. I guess he said that the Polish style is a too telegraphic for the Italian reader. And so I have to manage it, but only for the first pages, and then I'll continue to follow the Polish author style. And so this is the principle challenge that I have to manage always when I translate novels from Olga Tokarczuk.

Susan: Thanks, Barbara. Lisa and Lothar, translating into German, do you find similar challenges as to what Barbara found in Italian? Lisa and Lothar?

Lothar: Yes. Yes.

We brought home, really, hundreds of pages of Xeroxed copies to study, and this was, this was huge work. These characters appeared in our dreams, I can say. We were really, and we were absolutely absorbed.

Lisa: Yeah, I think maybe, I can only talk about "The Books of Jacob," because that was the work we did together. Except for that also the Nobel lecture, but I think it's, there's nothing so special to talk about. But "The Books of Jacob" had language difficulties were of the, not of same nature as Barbara mentioned, that they were within the language, but we had different language layers, because the whole story is in the 17th century. So, we had letters and all, already also some original texts even quoted, so, then we had to find a similar old language in German. Then we had the normal talking voice that wasn't a modern language. I think that voice was mostly Olga's voice. And then we had a person, a figure in the book who is writing a kind of diary, and there was, again, another language level. So, we had to balance, or to find languages for three, at least three different levels. And switch between them and also try to find equivalence for some 17th century language that we are not, of course not using anymore. And these were basically the language difficulties we had with "The Books of Jacob".

Lothar: Yeah, we also, we also had long discussions about a certain kind of, let's say a certain kind of locating, locating the story in a cultural way in a certain region. And we wanted to give it a little patch, our translation, a little touch of Austro-Hungarian language because of the connection with Galicia. Old Galicia, this old landscape, historical landscape should be present also in the language. And we found out that there by, by reading authors from Galicia, German language authors from the 20th century mostly. In their autobiographical memories we were looking for specific vocabulary which was really specific German vocabulary, but used only in this region. So when the story of Jacob is moving around, let's say in the region of Laviff, Lemburg, and some other places connected to Galicia, we used these terms. And when it's moving into other parts of Europe, we switched to a let's say, a standard German. And this was a very interesting, interesting aspect. We learned a lot by reading these authors. And I think this is something that brings more color into this translation that you can really hear something like a, yes, let's say something like, like a voice which is connected to this place. And one interesting story, it was Just the first reading, the first meeting just on the day when Olga received the Nobel Prize, we were at the German town, the German town called Bieleferd. And there was an actress reading on that evening. And after the reading, she came to me and she said, "I must you ask a question because I am from Munich, "and I am very astonished to find so many "Austrian vocabulary in some parts of the book. "You two, you and your colleague, "you are probably from Austria." And I said, no, yeah, we are not from Austria. But it's very nice that you mentioned that because this was a concept that we followed by doing the translation.

Susan: Wonderful, and Hikaru, you translate Olga Tokarczuk's work into Japanese. We've been talking about, we've been talking about the very European content of her books and how the various, the translators into the various European languages have handled that; what challenges have you faced translating Olga's work into Japanese with that very different, those very different cultural and geographical constraints?

Hikaru: Yes. Yes. Actually Japanese and European languages are very different in every aspect, and so it takes many different techniques to translate Polish literature from Polish. And, but what, without concerning geographical or language difference, what I pay most the utmost attention to is not to break, not to break the poetic aspect or a sensitive aspect of Olga's works. And the Japanese language, it has many more personal pronouns, many more personal pronouns than European languages. And its use of honorifics. Honorifics is much complicated, much complicated. So, I think taking advantageous, taking advantage of these things helped me to produce more sensitive translate, more sensitive translation, I think. Yeah. For example, depending format we can use many ways to say "I" or "you" or "she", something like that. And I also pay attention, I also pay attention to the way my translation sounds so that if it would give comfort to the readers if it were to be read aloud. Yeah. Sound is very good. Poetic sound, kind of, is very important aspect, I think for Olga's writing. Yes, in Japanese, I tried to, I tried to keep these aspects in also in Japanese translation. Yeah, I did.

Susan: Okay. Thank you. Thank you, Hikaru. One of the points made about Olga's work, and I think that several of you have touched on it, is that her books, although they do share certain motifs and they share certain themes, are wildly different. And each book there, there is no, there is no sense I think when you read Olga's books that you are necessarily reading the same author time after time. I know I certainly, reading "Flights" and then following that with "Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead" was quite what a whip-lashing effect. But those of you who have translated more than one of Olga's works, I wonder what changes you've noticed in her style over time? And Antonia, I'm particularly interested in your take, since you did "House of Day, House of Night" back in the early two-thousands and then just published "Drive Your Plow" last year. So, what kind of changes, Antonia, do you see in Olga's style over time?

Antonia: In some ways she's like the Athena. She emerged from Zeus' head fully armed and kind of ready for battle. In many ways she just is a brilliant writer who was born to do what she does. But of course, we've all observed developments in her work over the years. And I think there's been a great growth in confidence pretty rapidly, in fact. And she kind of found her feet as a writer quite fast. But she's always had this sort of healthy anarchy of wanting to play around with form. She can't bear to write a just straightforward, boring linear novel. She's always making the form work for her. So, what I've seen her do is develop these different attitudes to conventions, sort of grab it by the throat and give it a good shaking. So the genres have to fit her requirements not the other way around. And there was the Greek soldier-poet Archilochus wrote a lovely thing about the fox and the hedgehog. And the hedgehog has one trick. It rolls into a ball and it's safe. But the fox has many tricks. And Isard Berlin used this as a metaphor for writing about writers. And he wrote a wonderful essay where he talks about some writers as foxes and others as hedgehogs. And Olga is most categorically a fox. So, she has this versatility and she can keep reinventing herself and keep finding a new way to do things. I'm really not surprised when she has more than one translator in different languages, because sometimes I can't relate to one book, but I can relate to another. So, when I think about the three novels that I've translated there's "House of Day, House of Night," which is what Olga calls are constellation novel like "Flights," it's the one, it's the kind of counterpart to "Flights" in that it's the one about the opposite of traveling. It's about never going anywhere and staying in one place. But it's built up with this patchwork of pieces, including diary pieces and stories, which all form a sort of whole. And there is a wholeness to it, particularly when you translate it, you feel that thread going through it. And a sort of thread of a slightly sinister mood to it. And then I translated "Primeval and Other Times," and something I'm very lucky I share with Olga is that we both absolutely love fairytales and have always all of our lives. She's always collected and read a great deal of of myths and legends from around the world; she loves them. And that shows in "Primeval and Other Times" where she's taking that genre of myth and just turning it into her own take to give a kind of microcosm portrait of central Europe through the 20th century. Amazing to just filter all that down into this story of this family, that's told in a mythical way. And then I translated "Drive Your Plow Over the Bones "of the Dead," where I think most of the translators who've done it will agree, what's crucial is the central voice, the narrator's voice. This rather eccentric, crazy, unique voice of this person who could be frightfully off-putting. You could read several pages of her and want to head for the hills. But you've got to make her sympathetic to the reader. And Olga does that; she kind of makes the reader the main character's accomplice and drags the reader into being involved in some very shady business indeed. That's challenging for the translator because you have to recreate that voice in the same way so that you also keep the reader with you for 250 pages, although the person who's hand they're trustingly holding and going into the forest with is completely bonkers!

Susan: Olga, you also translated "Drive Your Plow". What kind of changes have you also seen in Olga Tokarczuk's style across different books?

Olga: Well, just as Antonia said, the differences are very visible. I mean, if you read for example, "E.E." and then you read "Flights" or "Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead," and then "The Books of Jacob," you will, like, just by intuition you will feel that the style is different. And in case of "Drag Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead," it's a very, I would say, it's a different book just as Antonia said. You know, that the most important thing is the voice. So, you have to recreate the voice. And for example, in Brazilian Portuguese that was, I wouldn't say it was difficult but, there was, because Brazilian Portuguese is, I would say it's less formal than Polish. The Polish voice, Janina Duszejko's voice is quite formal. I mean, she's extremely eccentric. She's very emotional, but at the same time she's quite formal, especially when she writes the letters. So in Brazilian Portuguese, that was, it wasn't hard but I'd have to like, put myself, you know, into her head and voice and, you know, try to recreate that woman you know, in her sixties, for example. In her sixties, just, you know, talking to you or to the to the readers, you know, and telling her strange stories. So, and also the, the astrology for example. The parts where you have, you know, her, lectures on astrology, that was quite complicated or difficult as well, just to not to get, you know, the reader bored with that. Yeah.

Susan: Of course. Ostap, you also did, you did "Books of Jacob" and you also did "Flights". What kind of differences and changes did you notice, again, over time as you translated into Ukrainian?

Ostap: Well, I, I have an impression that "The Books of Jacob," the book, which was really very, very expected by many people, by many of Olga's readers, they are in some sense, and to some extent, a continuation of this traveling story. But if, in the "Flights" you have mostly the heroes who escaped from something. They escaped, they want to escape from their lives, first of all. If I try to state it in one word, I would say that "Flights" is a story, is a novel of escape, of some, some travel, some journey, which has only a starting point. But it doesn't have a finish point. It doesn't have its, its visible point. While "Books of Jacob" is a novel, which could be described as a story of search for home, metaphysical home, not a geographical/spatial, but a home for one's soul. So, it's very interesting how these two texts are similar, complimentary and different, deeply different on some very, very profound level. But both these texts really give a very important message to all of us, the contemporary people, the people of 21st century, because these texts are the texts about the other, the other-ness. The someone who has no natural place to be and no natural home, no spacial home. And sometimes it's in a situation when he or she has to look for, for the home somewhere in some spiritual spheres, not spatial, and we have to be ready to see and to hear these people sometimes besides us, very closely to us. And it's very important also to the Ukrainian readers, I think, it was a very, very important message. An important story about our country, our lands.

Susan: Absolutely. Ostap, it's so interesting that you focused on the topic of otherness. That of course is what one characteristic of works in translation that the publisher and the translator of course always work to not overcome and not even necessarily allude, but ease, to bring a book from one language, one culture into another. Translators are so crucial in the reception of writers in other countries, in other languages. Obviously. That was a very obvious comment. I'm interested in the reception of Olga Tokarczuk's works in each of your countries. Pavel, what is the reception of Olga Tokarczuk's work in the Czech Republic? Pavel?

Pavel: Okay, here I am. Yeah, I think I mentioned it in the introduction. It's fantastic! Yeah. It's almost as she was one of our own female writers. And although we have a wave of, a wave I would call it, we have many wonderful female writers at the moment in the Czech literature, which is a very fascinating sort of way of, sort of treating with the old male waves that came. She's considered a part of it actually. Yeah. And as I was saying, the only each of Olga's books that came into the Czech Republic were very much expected and I don't envy Petra Vitlag because they had to be translated very quickly because the readers were expecting it. And also we had some sort of other additions as well with that, that came with it, reprints. Also, you know, many personal ties that are inserted with Olga. So, I think the Czech Republic is really another home to Olga; I don't know if she would agree with the fact but you know, she's very much based here from the beginning, from her very first books. And through the readership sort of reactions to her books. And she's, she's a part of our culture. I wrote I wrote an article after she received and she and Jenny who is with us, received the International Booker prize two years ago. I was asked to write a article about Olga and this prize into one of the Czech literary magazines and I put the title and they kept it. And it was our, in English I guess you would loosely translate it as "Our lady of the Noble Prize." So she was, she was actually our lady. And everyone was very curious. And I'm sure that the other translators into Czech got phone calls and stuff and congratulations. Everybody was so, so much happy because you know, in Czech literature we haven't had much international successes. There are exceptions of course, over the last year. So we are a little bit sort of, occupying other countries. But I think it's a very, very pleasant way to do this.

Susan: Okay. Thank you, Pavel. Hikaru, you said that when you first read Olga's work you thought immediately that she would really appeal to Japanese readers.

Hikaru: Oh yes. Uh-huh, uh-huh.

Susan: Has that, and what is the reception? What has the reception in Japan been to her various books? You've done what?

Hikaru: Oh yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yes. All three books have been positively received in Japan but Olga's "House of Day, House of Night" has gained the most popularity. And I know, understand why because when I was reading this book I felt kind of, some kind of nostalgia in this book. And I thought about this nostalgia, nostalgic feeling. I realized that what I felt is, what I felt is some Oriental view of the world that existed in this book, in "House of Day, House of Night". In fact, I've, in fact, actually I've written a paper on the subject. After the, and interestingly, after the book "House of Day, House of Night" was published, a very famous critic commented that it reminds her of was an ancestor, Japanese ancestor who lived 800 years ago. Yeah, and he wrote about the evanescence, evanescence of life. So to speak, that everything in this world changes. Yeah. And that is as a Buddhist view of the world. And one quote from his essays, famously says that: That water is not the same as water before, like a river flowing. I think evanescence and instability are qualities that characterizes Olga's working, or Olga's works that among other reasons. There are other reasons why Japanese readers lover her work, Olga's work, I think. And it's also said that we very often experience, we very often experience natural disasters here in Japan. So we, we don't believe anything everlasting. So, it's also said that. So I feel sympathized, I feel kind of sympathized with Olga's works.

Susan: Oh, that's, that's fascinating, Hikaru, thank you. You know, another question that comes up, here we have 10 of Olga's translators in one place. This is very exciting! But as we mentioned earlier, there are as many as 90 translators who have worked on her books. And another interesting element of translation publishing is that books are not necessarily published in the order in which they were published originally, in the original language. And often a group of books are published only after one book makes a great success. So, you'll see many others coming out in a very short time. Whereas, there may have been a gap, as a couple of you have mentioned. I'm curious to know about to what extent, when you do have all these options of worldwide versions of Olga's work, we're interested in knowing how, what do you, what kind of, do you consult with other translators in your language or in others, or refer to other translations? And I think Lisa and Lothar, I think you could lead off this question because of course you're, you're the tandem pair in our conversation tonight. You're the collaborators who do work together. I think everyone would be interested in knowing what methods you use. Lisa and Lothar?

Lothar: Yes, yes.

Lisa: Yes, yes. We are here. Okay, we are here?

Lothar: Yep, mm-hmm.

Lisa: Yeah. Okay. Yes, as Lothar said before, we already translated another book before. An autobiography, it was also a very big book, 600 pages. And we decided to not let person translate the first half and the other one the second, but to change after every chapter. So, we were exchanging the chapters all the time and this was very good, 'cause I think otherwise when one some person translates a lot of chapters and the other one the next, then you get lost in your own language style. And you never see if it fits together. Maybe the reader later we'll see something doesn't fit, that the language changes within the book. So, we decided to work like this again. This was of course, it was a longer process than as if one person translates the whole book. I think because we are already were correcting and working on the style. On the other hand, if for me, especially with the "Books of Jacob" was a very necessary thing, very necessarily experience because I think I alone, there were so many things we had to read to understand this, the topic and the life of Jacob Frank and the theory and mystics behind it. And I think one person alone would not be able so good to understand everything. Or at least I know that I wouldn't be able to, to see so many aspects I saw working together with Lothar. So, it was, on the one hand it was from the language very interesting and necessary because we found that in this process we, very often we have the same thoughts. And when we were, we met at least one time in the month that we're talking about the chapters we did in between. And then very often we came to the same conclusion. So, this was a very good and interesting process. But maybe it would not work with everyone. A lot of people told me they never could work together in translation with another translator.

Lothar: I must start, I think this can speak for both of us, that we said several times during this work on "The Books of Jacob," that we really have the deepest deepest, deepest respect for the persons who did this alone. Because I, speaking for myself, I think I would have been afraid to get lost alone. And you also said sometimes that it is so helpful because you are, you have doubts. We immediately could discuss them. We could consult them. And we collected, we collected a library. It's our private Jacob Frank library. During the work, we really read so many books, articles, we also were in an archive in Ofenbach, where he spent his last years there, a lots of Frank-iana there. We brought home really hundreds of pages of Xeroxed copies to study, and this was, this was huge work. These characters appeared in our dreams, I can say. We were really, and we were absolutely absorbed. And so many times we've said, now imagine you are working on this alone. This is really, almost incredible. And the thing which was really wonderful was that all the time when we were discussing certain problems, discussing certain aspects of the translation, it was a huge inspiration. And we actually, the question that came up sometimes in discussions also with readers, didn't you fight, didn't you quarrel? Actually not because there was nothing to quarrel and to find a solution. And willing to find the best solution. And this was always the main priority. And sometimes we, we were twisting the sentence 25 times, and then suddenly we said, this is it now. And the other person said, yes, you are right. This is it. And I also think that this is a question of, let's say a question, just of work. I can understand that, for example, someone says that he or she would not like to make such a tandem work. It just came out that, that we are, somehow, yeah, we are just somehow made for it. I surely, I absolutely can understand that if someone says that this would not be a right thing for me, it's the question just of trying and finding out.

Lisa: And thank you to Jennifer.

Lothar: Yes, yes. And one thing, very important thing, we want to send a special thank you and a special greeting to Jenny because she, we also had a contact with her, quite intense contact. And she put us on a very important track because thanks to Jenny, we came to Solomon Mimonidus. Thank you, Jenny.

Susan: Jenny, would you like to respond to Lothar and Lisa's comment? Again, wondering how they could ever have done it without a partner, how are you doing it alone?

Lisa: This is often my question—

Lothar: Yeah, but a short, sorry. A little correction. It was of course, Solomon Mimon. Not Mimonidus. Mimonidus was also in the book. But in another chapter; it was Solomon Miman. Thank you.

Jennifer: Yeah, I was just gonna interject that I am so grateful to Lisa and Lothar and also to every, every one of Olga's translators who was working on or who has worked on "The Books of Jacob" because they are, Lothar and Lisa are right. It's not really something that you can do alone. And as Ostap mentioned, Olga didn't do it alone either. I mean, she is using so many books and she also traveled so much. And she went around Ukraine and she visited these spaces. And this isn't just the work of one person's imagination. So, it can't be the work of one translator's imagination either. And I was really lucky to get Lothar and Lisa on the phone a few times; we talked a lot about sources. And we have a Facebook group for all of us now called Windows, which is, comes from Olga's very short essay that appeared in English, in the New Yorker about the pandemic. And it really spoke to us as her translators, because it seemed to correctly reflect this idea that one thing that Olga can offer the world is these kinds of fresh perspectives and this borderless-ness and this transparency that you don't often encounter in literature. So, when I have questions, Olga is always happy to help but sometimes I feel like the best thing to do, if there's a sentence that is really just giving me a hard time is to ask the other translators rather than asking Olga, because once you involve, I, this is just how I work, but once I involve the author, then I'm extending the translation into this whole other realm of biography and so forth, and their intentions, and maybe that doesn't, isn't reflected in in the actual book in Polish. And maybe it doesn't also need to be transmitted in the English version. But just for reference, this is the book that we're talking about. It's quite enormous. So, this is one of the reasons why it's hard to translate alone, but there are many, there are many reasons, though. But I have not translated alone. I've translated it with lots of help.

Susan: Barbara, you also did "Books of Jacob" into Italian. Did you consult with other translators along the way?

Barbara: I’m translating now in this moment. Yes, but I say always that I'm quite at the end. It means that I have still 200 pages.

Susan: Oh my!

Barbara: And I say, okay, I'm quite at the end. After 700 pages, you feel this way at the end.

Susan: 3/4 of the way.

Barbara: Sorry?

Susan: 3/4 of the way there.

Barbara: Yes. At the beginning of my career, I didn't think that consulting with other colleagues was so important. But now with Olga's book, yes it is. And in fact, also with this book, with this "Books of Jacob," I'm working not with a translator, but with a Polish actress of theatre. She lives in Italy and she is a friend of Olga. And so, Olga suggested that we work together because she has a very great culture and she, and she knows very well, the story of Jews in Poland. And also she knows very well this story. And so, she is very helpful for me. And at the beginning with this book I thought that the most difficult thing was the story, the plot, and all the historical facts to understand. And I talked to her with language, no problem. The language is very simple. I can understand quite everything. And then I discovered that it is not this way. I have her, her help is, yes, I need it. And so, we are working together. I translate it, she corrects it. We don't quarrel. And I think that this is a way also to, to change a little, the idea that the translator works alone and that this image of a loneliness of the translator is no more this way. Probably in the past, I don't know, but now I think. And also with the, also in this moment as we can see that we are all here together talking about the same author and same languages. Okay, so, I hope, I think that this collaborative cooperation should be at the basis of the work process on the translate, of the translations.

Susan: Great. Thank you, Barbara. Cristina, have you, you've done so much translation. Have you found yourself consulting with other translators as you've worked on Olga's books?

Cristina: No, I didn't consult with my fellow translators in the past, but I'm 10 pages into books, "The books of Jacob" and I already, I'm feeling that it's a book like no other before. So, it will require a lot of research on my part. And I'm sure that I'll have lots of questions to ask my fellow translators. And I'd be happy to benefit from their insights and experiences.

Susan: Well, why don't we take advantage of having all 10 of you here now and turn this over to you? What questions do you have for your fellow translators?

Cristina: Well, I don't have a question related to "The Books of Jacob," but I have a question to Antonia. Are you the inspiration for the short story "Professor Andrews in Warsaw"?

Antonia: Absolutely not!

Cristina: No?

Antonia: I didn't know Olga, I think, when she wrote that. It's not—

Cristina: Because you lost your luggage and—But it was that period, that martial law.

Antonia: No, he's the person who arrives knowing no Polish whatsoever. And he arrives in Poland on the day that martial law is declared, December the 13th, 1981. And he's an Englishman who's been invited to come and take part in a conference in Warsaw. And this poor man arrives, not understanding anything. And so, nobody comes to pick him up from the airport and he can't understand why. And eventually some student comes and doesn't know quite what to do with him. And they take him and they stick him in a flat and they just leave him there. And there are tanks in the streets. And it's just before Christmas. And in Poland, people have carp for Christmas. And so you can go and buy a carp, but it's a famous thing that people buy them living. And they swim around in the bathtub before Christmas. And then you have to eat this pet fish you've got used to for Christmas. So, he goes to a shop and he can't really understand what's going on except that someone keeps saying live or dead, live or dead, thinking he wants to buy one of these fish. And it's all about this bewildered professor. It's actually going to be filmed. So, it's got nothing to do with me. There is, my father inspired a story of Olga's, which is in "Flights".

Cristina: Oh, okay.

Antonia: About a professor in Greece, who, she, Olga was staying with me. And my father and his wife; my father was a professor of classical literature and they were traveling in Greece on a boat giving lectures. My father fell out of his bunk bed and made an almighty fuss about it. Although the height he'd fallen was like this. So, Olga thought this was funny, and then based a story, wrote a story about a professor and his wife traveling in Greece and the professor actually dies in the story, leaving the wife to pick up the bits. So, fortunately my own family story was not quite so dramatic.

Susan: Well, I'm glad to hear that since it amuses you so, Antonia. Other questions, translators, for your colleagues here? Pavel, did you have a question for the other translators?

Barbara: Yes.

Pavel: Yeah.

Barbara: Oh, Pavel. Sorry.

Pavel: Okay. But I wanted to ask, I wanted to say and to add, since Antonia is stuck in a flight in Warsaw, right? So, I'll take it up too, if you believe her story or not. Okay, actually, I had a question for our Scandinavian colleague. Who is, unfortunately couldn't make it to today's meeting because I was really interested, and maybe some of you could tell me. What's the reception of Olga's work in Scandinavia? You know, somebody knows. Somebody knows because I was interested in this aspect, nobody?

Antonia: They gave her a small prize in Sweden.

Jennifer: Yeah, I was gonna say about Sweden—

Pavel: Yes, yes. I remember. And apart from that, is it, or maybe some of you know about Olga's relations to Scandinavia. This is just my place that I got this morning but maybe some other questions but since I have some colleagues, I congratulated the tandem, Lothar and Lisa on doing the book, and I was really interested in the method that you did. Yeah, I co-translated "Flights" with Petra Vitlag, as I said, and the method was totally different. Which was the little stories and her style. Okay. What is my question? They've talked about it a little bit. Maybe I could change Scandinavia for Brazil?

Susan: Ah, yes.

Pavel: So, Olga. Olga, tell us. Because it's quite exotic for us, at least Europeans. So, you said that you've actually introduced Olga to Brazilian readers.

Olga: No.

Pavel: So there was nothing before it.

Olga: There was. No, there was. In 2013 "Flights" was published here in Brazil by the And Thomas Barcinski was the translator. that translated "Flights," the first version of "Flights". So, it was published but I don't know why actually. It wasn't really, it didn't, you know, it didn't get very famous. Olga did not get very famous here in Brazil. So, I think it was more restricted to smaller to people who actually knew Eastern European literature. And there was no interest like, even by the, you know, the publishers weren't really interested in Olga's work until I could say last year. Yeah, The Booker Prize, of course made Olga famous here. And the Nobel, and after the Nobel, well, she became very, very famous, and the reception has been very, very, very good. Yeah, so, people even write, write me, you know, on Facebook or just straight to me and ask me, you know, when Olga's books are going to be published? When more of Olga's books are going to be published. Because last year in November "Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead" was published in November, right after the Nobel Prize. So, it was like, a very, you know, perfect timing I would say. And I translated "Flights," once again. So that was also quite a difficult, yeah, it was, it was hard because, you know, Thomas Barcinski's translation was from 2013. So, there's not much, it's not like, you know just a few years have passed from 2013. And yeah, and I think that, well, the public is quite interested and I believe that Olga is going to be, she is already a success here, but she's going to be a bigger success.

Susan: Olga, I'm interested that, you said the Booker had such impact in Brazil. Does it, does the international Booker generally have that much effect? Or would you say it was particular to, or that it was specific to Olga's case?

In some ways she's like the Athena. She emerged from Zeus' head fully armed and kind of ready for battle. In many ways she just is a brilliant writer who was born to do what she does.

Olga: No, in general, the Booker has a very, very big impact. The thing is that the Brazilian market, like publishing market is also is very, very big. So, you have lots of, you also have lots of Brazilian authors. So, you know, foreign authors don't have that much space you know, especially Eastern European. While they're known, like in very limited circles, I would say, academic circles as well. So, to really get to the general public it's not that easy. But I think that Olga managed to do it. And she, I would say that she's a very universal, even though she's Eastern European, she's Polish. And the Polish culture and the Polish mentality is very present in her works. But she is able to cross those borders and it's really, like, with her, with the emotional side of, or the poetic side of her, of her writing, of her books, she's managed, she manages to get to, you know, foreigners. That's why I was curious as well, for example, what it was in, how it was in Japan? If the Japanese people managed to like, to understand the Olga and, if they understand like, the you know, the cultural side as well of her, of her writing of her books. 'Cause I know that for example Chopin, the Japanese people love Chopin.

Hikaru: Oh yes. Exactly.

Olga: Yes.

Hikaru: Exactly. Yeah, yeah.

Olga: What is it like with Olga's texts?

Hikaru: Yeah, but as I said, she gets very famous now and the she has gained the most popularity. Yes. Yeah. And actually, actually, this "House of Day, House of Night" was fourth reprinting, reprinted.

Susan: Four times?

Hikaru: Four times, yeah. Four times.

Susan: Wow.

Hikaru: It’s very rare case in foreign literature, yeah, in today's market of literature. Yeah, I have to say, very popular and very famous writer now in Japan, even in Japan. So yeah.

Susan: Hikaru, are there, what is the, what is the reception in Japan of Polish writers in general? Is Olga Tokarczuk really one of the few? Or have you done a lot of other books or?

Hikaru: No. Actually no. Actually, no; I translated one of short stories from [inaudible 1:31:50].

Susan: Ah.

Hikaru: Yeah, Asian poet. For example, last year, this year, this year. Oh, I forgot. Sophia Nowkoska, translation of Sophia Nowkoska, she's not a modern writer, a present modern writer. Translation of Sophia Nowkoska get a translation, a literary translation prize in Japan this year. Getting much more popularity now, Polish literature is getting much more popularity now. But yeah, yeah. Yes. Yes.

Susan: Okay. Jenny and Antonia, I had a question for you as are our two English-language representatives. Obviously the Nobel has different, different impact for different writers, but Antonia, I think you mentioned that you saw a rush of sales for your translation of "House of Day, House of Night" after the Nobel.

Antonia: Yes. It was out of print in Britain. But it was still on sale in the United States where, thanks to your good offices, it had appeared a long time earlier and not been given all that much attention. And the same with "Primeval," which was published with a tiny little publishing house based in Prague, Twisted Spoon. And of course the Nobel did suddenly sell those books again, which was very, very nice because you've done all that work and you feel all sad that nobody's taken any notice of it. And suddenly people wanted those older titles. In fact, there's some older books of Olga's that haven't been translated into English that I have tried and tried in the past, and still hope I might perhaps be able to translate. So yeah, it has definitely been a huge boost.

Susan: And Jenny, were you all, I can't remember, were you already under contract for "Book of Jacob" when the Nobel came, when the Booker and the Nobel came through?

Jennifer: I was. Yeah. Yeah, so, I, I've mentioned this in other conversations about Olga's work, but I, it took a really long time to find a publisher for the book "Flights" in the U.S. or in English. And I think that the English-speaking world's relationship to translation is a little bit different from the German-speaking world, for instance. Or certainly neighboring countries like Ukraine and the Czech Republic that translate more from Poland. So, it's really hard to sell a foreign author. Anything that any particularities in her style were received by potential editors as like, red flags, things that could potentially drive readers away from the book. Which obviously turned out to be not the case at all. But it really did kind of take, the Booker Prize helped a lot in English, too. And of course then the Nobel Prize helped enormously. But I was really lucky to find Jacques Testard at Fitzcarraldo, which is a very small publish, I mean, it was basically just him at the time. A wonderful independent publishing house in London. And he signed both "Flights" and "The Books of Jacob" at the same time, which was a brilliant move on his part.

Susan: And a wonderful show of competence in an, in an author who, again, had not been so terribly, or recently really tested in, published in English. But I think looking at this, if I think most of, the large number of our translators here have done "Flights" so it does appear to be the most popular of Olga's books in translation. Those of you who have done "Flights," what do you think, what do you think is the appeal? Ostap, what do you think is the appeal for "Flights" to the Ukrainian reader?

Ostap: Well, as I said, Olga Tokarczuk was popular in Ukraine, even in the, in late nineties, the first, first translations of Olga's works appeared in some literary periodicals. So, after 1999, Olga is getting more and more popular. So, it was really some kind of a must-read for us as young people who are, who were beginning to study foreign literatures, but not only for us specialists. It was really popular maybe partly due to a very interesting situation with her, with Olga's origin. Because many people in Ukraine perceive Olga as Ukrainian writer or partly Ukrainian. After Nobel Prize for Olga, it was huge misunderstanding in Ukrainian media, journalists from different media commenting this prize or asking questions to the translators about her work. Were calling her Ukrainian writer. So, and we were, we were asking them, please stop, she's not Ukrainian. Yes, she has some Ukrainian origin, she has some Ukrainian roots but she's not Ukrainian. I always tried to stress that this is even more interesting situation, that she is not Ukrainian but she feels these Ukrainian/Polish borderland territories even better. And she knows them even better than many Ukrainian writers or Polish writers who are not that, so, how to say, border-oriented? It's very important how she shows the territories that we are used to perceive as Ukrainian, of course taking into account its complicated history. But she shows it from the completely different point of view. After "Books of Jacob" were published in Ukrainian, I saw some reactions concerning the images of Ukrainians in this novel. Because there is only one hero. Very marginal one, who is evidently Ukrainian. Despite the big part of the action takes place in Ukraine. We have only evident Ukrainian here, only one, due to, we know it due to his name, Hertzkov. This Ukrainian guy is, he grew up in a Jewish family. And he became, in fact, he became a Jew. He's not, he does not be a Ukrainian identity anymore in this novel, and it was it was a circumstance which was discussed in Ukrainian reading community. Why? Why does it happen? And, but it's very, the answer is very simple. The point of view in this novel is a Jewish point of view. Moreover, as the point of view of small, very marginalized group of the Jews, marginalized even within the Jewish community. So, it's quite, it's absolutely natural that these, the group of the main heroes, these Jews, Jacob Frank's sect, they deal first of all with those whom they depend on. With Polish aristocracy, with church administration, with the King, with the royal, people from the royal court, et cetera. They do not communicate much with the other marginalized groups like Ukrainians. This is some, maybe some bitter truth we have to accept. We have to understand from our past, the real very objectively represented landscape, multicultural landscape. And we see a real place of different national groups in these territories. In okay, and then it's 18th century, but still many things, many stories from that time are actually for us.

Susan: Yeah. That's fascinating, Ostap. Alison and Esther, is it time to, turn the floor over, open the floor for questions from the audience?

Allison: It is, it is. Thank you for such a masterful moderation, Susan. It's been wonderful to—

Susan: Thank you.

Allison: Listen to every, the threads and the themes that flow among all of these translators, it's been been wonderful. This question came in rather early. I think it was after the self introductions that we had. This is directed to Olga. The question is: You are the only translator on the panel, they noticed, who translates into a language that is not your native one; that is remarkable. How did your Brazilian Portuguese become native? How is your work received in Brazil? Which we talked about. And you mentioned that there are other Brazilian translators.

Olga: Yeah, well, I'm Polish. I was born in Poland. I learned Portuguese, it's not my mother tongue, but I treat it as my mother tongue because I, as I said before, I feel that I'm able to communicate better in Brazilian Portuguese than in my own mother tongue, in Polish. I cannot explain it. It's just something that, it's unexplainable to me. And while I've lived in Brazil, my family and my closest family, my husband is Brazilian so, I have daily contact with the language. And I also, I, well, I think that I can, when I write, I express myself better in Brazilian Portuguese than in Polish. So I, for example, I prefer to do translations from Polish to Brazilian Portuguese than from Portuguese to Polish. I just feel more comfortable doing it. As to the reception, well, I think it was, I think it was good. I mean, you would have to ask the readers.

Allison: I think you addressed that earlier. And I think, I mean, the question that came from the viewer is one that we've addressed repeatedly in this conference, "Translating the Future". We had a whole mini series called "Motherless Tongues, "Multiple Belongings," in which I think it's something that the translation community around the world, but especially in the United States is addressing. Who has the right or the authority to translate into this language or that language? I wanted to just point out. Was it, there was a moment earlier when everyone was asking did Barbara get to ask her, do you have a question for the other translators? I wanted to make sure that you.

Barbara: Oh, yes. I question to whom wanted to answer. Probably, the Nobel has changed Olga's life. And of course, I think. And I'm glad to know if it is changed also the work, the professional life of one of you in a certain way? It is, something has changed, has changed from before the Nobel and after the Nobel, in your work, in your job? Who wants to answer?

Esther: It’s a great question. Nobody wants to? Nobody wants to?

Lisa: We will. We will.

Lothar: Yes. Thank you. Thank you, Barbara, for this question. Yes indeed. It changed. I think I can put that in a, in a very simple way. I hope this doesn't sound too simple. It is, it is just the continuation of the work as much. And in former times, especially when I started doing translations, I had to knock on dozens, hundreds of doors. And now for the first time, really the publisher was knocking and asking, do you want to? This is, it is very simple but it is also essential because this knocking on hundreds of doors is very exhausting if you have to do it for a long time. So, it has changed the professional life, quite a lot, yes.

Barbara: Okay, it's the same experience I have in this moment. For this reason, I asked before. I spent a lot of time trying to convince an Italian publisher to publish not only Olga Tokarczuk's novels, but also other Polish authors. And I had a lot of difficulties. Now are the publishers that are calling me, please, can you translate the next year? Or into two years or into three years? And so, that's, it's good for us. What do you think?

Lothar: Yeah, of course! Of course it's good, and I mean, I mean, we all know that it can be a very hard job and that it, it needs really a lot of time. I mean, translating is not only translating. It is, we all know that translating is living with the text you translate. Translating means that you, that you order books from all over the country, sometimes even from abroad because you need some background information. You actually, for me I can say that every book is like doing a little, a little kind of studies. It's like around maybe not exactly a Bachelor, but I would say "The Books of Jacob" were more than a Bachelor.

Esther: A PhD! No doubt a PhD!

Lisa: As well as the Master.

Lothar: And for this reason, it is just, it is just nice. It feels nice when you hear that knock then from the publisher side you do not have to talk by yourself.

Esther: Yes, we have one more question, which I think is a fascinating one. That—

Allison: Okay.

Esther: Oh. Did you want to say something else?

Allison: Looks like Ostap wanted to respond.

Esther: Okay.

Ostap: May I ask one question, one short question? Visa versa to Barbara, concerning "Books of Jacob" and her translation. When I was translating, probably it's, this question is more proper for Barbara then to Lothar and Lisa because they were translating this novel together. The different experience is when you translate this such a novel alone. When I was translating this book, I felt that I lost-- I lost connection with the outer world for some long period of my time and of my life and my friends said me that I became very boring because after a couple of minutes of conversation, I always, I was beginning to talk about "Books of Jacob" and I was retelling some stories from the book and it was extremely boring. It was such a, such a huge extent of absorption, of drowning into the text. Barbara, do you feel the same? This is my question.

Barbara: Yes. And well, this job on "The Books of Jacob," that in mind all of my, all these crazy because I started in January. And I planned to finish at the end of the year. So I planned that each day, how many pages. And then I didn't know very well the Jewish culture. So, I had to study a lot, not only with books, but also with serial on TV. And thanks, Netflix. I and the poor husband that I have we watch a lot of serial on Netflix about the people, Jewish culture, Jewish serial. In addition because I like also to hear, how does it sound? And I spent a lot of time in the studio on this book. And I didn't lost all the friends, all of my friends. But quite, I think that I have to work a lot this year to find them again and to, to try to live a normal life again. Because this year is very particular, not only for, for "The Books of Jacob," but in general. And yes, this is the same, the same experience. Thank you that remember you me, how I'm living in this period. I forget it.

Esther: So, the question that's come in, which is quite brilliant is: In "Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead," Olga has her protagonist Janina Duszejko and her friend Dizzy engage in the act of translating William Blake's poems. As translators, what was your impression of Olga's dramatization of the act of translation? She seems to be placing translation not only as a bridge between peoples and cultures, but also as a bridge between these lonely individuals. What was the experience of translating into your native tongue an act of English to Polish translation? Anybody?

Anotnia: I can say something about that 'cause I had to translate it from English into English. Horrible! And I was a bit rebellious about this, I kind of threw all my toys out of my pram at beginning and said, I can't turn Blake into non-Blake! This is nonsense. And Olga was going, please try it. Jennifer completely gave me inspiration. We don't work together, Jennifer and I, we leave each other in peace. But she really helped me because she just quietly said in her subtle way, she just said, "Well, you know, I think I would do something with that." And that was, you know, red rag to a bull. So, then I thought, well, how can I recreate five different versions of the poetry by Blake, which is totally counter intuitive to me, to translate Blake into English that isn't Blake. And I realized that the translations in Polish weren't actually terribly good. So, all I had to do was do bad versions and follow what was bad about the Polish. But it felt very odd, and it's the thing people have asked me about the most about translating that book. So, I'm curious to hear what other people say about doing that.

Olga: Well, I'm looking for something because I did it in Brazilian Portuguese. What was difficult was that here in Brazil there are almost no official translations of Blake; there was just one. But it was very hard to get to it. What I did was look for these translations also on the internet. Like, very amateur translations. And I think I inspired myself on that. And just you know?

Esther: Crowdsourced Blake.

Olga: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Susan: Fascinating.

Cristina: The question is, when you translate Blake from Polish, is it still Blake in the end? No, I had the same problem. I had to look for the original. There was no translation into Romanian. I had to offer the original and then the Polish-based, because otherwise I would have gone further from the text. So, I had to keep to the Polish translation. But I, there was a footnote explaining.

Allison: So, we're actually starting to run, we are running down on time. But I'm going to ask in closing one final question. I think most people who are watching this have some connection; they already are familiar with Olga Tokarczuk's work, but since she does have so many styles and modes, for people who might be coming to her work for the first time, where would you suggest that they start? Which book would you tell them to start with? Or essay or story?

Susan: I will put in a plug for Jenny Croft's translation of "The Night," which you'll find on the Words Without Borders site at: www.WordsWithoutBorders.org. That's the end of my commercial interlude.

Jennifer: I was gonna say, any of the short stories. She's just such a wonderful short story writer. And I think that can get overlooked. Because Antonia and I are planning on putting together a collection of short stories. To have a whole book, but that hasn't happened yet. But you can easily just Google Olga Tokarczuk and Antonia Lloyd Jones, or Olga Tokarczuk and Jennifer Croft and you can find some really wonderful short stories published in magazines over the last 20 years. And otherwise I think "House of Day, House of Night" would be where I would start translated by Antonia.

Allison: We need to bring that back into print, all of you publishers out there watching because it is not available. And the copies that are available online are very pricey at this point. So, let's make it accessible.

Esther: I think we are at the end of our time. This has been amazing; it's gone by in a heartbeat. I can't believe that it's been two hours! We could go on for much longer. And also this entire conference has gone by in a heartbeat. We started in May. We began the planning two years ago. And now we're at the end. So, I want to thank all of you that I'm seeing on my screen right now, as well as the grand total of 86 participants who gave their time and energy and beauty and love and knowledge to this conference. And who helped Alison and I immensely to get through a difficult time. You have, Barbara you had "Books of Jacob," Alison and I had the conference. And I hope someday that we'll have a giant party somewhere wonderful where all 86 of you will gather in a single place, and we will celebrate everything that all of you have done.

Allison: Yes, yes.

Susan: And we thank you, Alison and Esther for this brilliant programming. I am sure that many other people thought that Tuesdays were the highlights of their weeks.

Allison: Thank you. Thank you for saying that, Susan. Once again, and for the last time, we'd like to thank our partners: Howell Round, Penn America, The Center for the Humanities at the Graduate Center CUNY, the Coleman Center for Scholars and Writers at the New York Public Library, and the Martin E. Segal Theatre Center. And to the Princeton University Program in Translation and Intercultural Communication, Boston University Center for the Humanities, the East-Central European Center at Columbia University, and the Polish Cultural Institute New York for their support of today's event. And thank you to all the viewers out there who have extended the reach of "Translating the Future" much further than we ever imagined.

[Everyone says thank you and goodbye as the call ends.]

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