Anna Blasiak – Anna Błasiak & Anna Hyde

Jewish Book Week 2020: Translation Matters to watch!

If you couldn’t be there at the JBW to hear Ros Schwartz, Peter Filkins, Boyd Tonkin and me talking translation, here is the video of the event in full:…

Kawiarnia przy St James’s Wrena w porze lunchu / Café by Wren’s St James-in-the-Fields, Lunchtime by Anna Błasiak and Lisa Kalloo out on 16 April

This book has collaboration and translation at its heart: between people, words and images, languages, cultures. The poems came first, in Polish. Then came the photographic response to them. Then four…

Jewish Book Week 2020: Translation Matters

TRANSLATION MATTERS PETER FILKINS, ANNA BLASIAK, SYLVIE WEIL CHAIR: BOYD TONKIN 01/03/2020 12:30 PMKINGS PLACE, ST PANCRAS ROOM Ticket Price : £9.50 GET TICKETS Author Boyd Tonkin wrote that, ‘To…

Queer Alphabet Soup

This is what I’m doing tomorrow! And here is what the QAS organisers say: Back for a second year! QAS is a series of readings, poetry and performance from literary queer novelists, poets, perfor…

*** (it wakes up from above)

Published in / Opublikowane w: Home on the Move. Two poems go on a journey, edited by Manuela Perteghella and Ricarda Vidal, Parthian Books Date of publication / Data publikacji: 2019 *** Translated f…

*** (Siedziałyśmy po trzech stronach)

Published in / Opublikowane w: Strefa wolna. Wiersze przeciwko nienawiści i homofobii Date of publication / Data publikacji: 2019 ***…

Brexit, * (W nocy sowy) / * (Noaptea bufnitele), Grand Tour AD 2018

Published in / Opublikowane w: Scadronul Sondoroirilor. Poezie Poloneza Protestatara Noua, Mamaliga d Varsovia / Szwadron szwargotań. Nowa polska poezja protestu, Mamałyga warszawska Date of publicati…

How to translate from Polish (even when you don’t know the language): The Stephen Spender Prize Polish Spotlight in the classroom by Anna Blasiak

The Stephen Spender Trust was established in 1997 to promote poetry and translation. In this post Anna Blasiak, poet, translator and literature co-ordinator of the European Literature Network, who wor…

#RivetingReviews: Anna Blasiak reviews HAVING NEVER MET by Inga Pizāne

This is the fifth volume in the Periscope series of translated poetry by the New York-based publisher A Midsummer Night’s Press, following One is None by Kätlin Kaldmaa, Anything Could …

#RivetingReviews: Anna Blasiak reviews GAMES WITH GRETA & OTHER STORIES by Suzana Tratnik

A dense, tense and intense collection of thirteen short stories dealing with heavy issues, from violence, bullying, abuse and cruelty to social exclusion and homophobia, Games with Greta &am…

The Queer Riveter: Outside and Inside – A Conversation Between Two Polish Poets by Maria Jastrzębska and Anna Blasiak

Maria Jastrzębska was born in Poland but arrived in the UK in the 1950s at the age of four. Anna Blasiak arrived in the UK from Poland in 2003, age twenty-nine. Both women are poets, both are queer. I…

Havana

Published in / Opublikowane w: Ink Sweat and Tears Date of publication / Data publikacji: July, 2019 HAVANA Sorrow crumbles down everywhere. Gaping holes on Malecon filled with stones. Yes, Hemingway …

*** (Łuk wycięcia zaplecka / Headbord carved), Zbiory / Harvest, Emigracja / Emigration

Published in / Opublikowane w: The Queer Riveter Date of publication / Data publikacji: June, 2019 ZBIORY Miąższ truskawek nagrzanych słońcem był jak krew. Zlizywałam łapczywie. Zaraz przyjdą wiśnie. …

Garp, Sen, Wakacje. Nieskończoność, * (Tansy ciągle na mnie warczy), Portret, * (Łuk wycięcia zaplecka)

Published in / Opublikowane w: Helikopter Date of publication / Data publikacji: 7-9, 2019 GARP Tak się zapamiętałam w tej ciszy pielęgnacji – ja smutna siostra bez miłosierdzia dla wiosny, co mimocho…

Life on Mars, *** (My one with the skin of burnt caramel), Anxiety

Published in / Opublikowane w: The Blue Nib (38) Date of publication / Data publikacji: June, 2019 ANXIETY I am a hammock hung in a small gardenbetween two wooden poleserected at opposite ends. I blus…

#RivetingReviews: Anna Blasiak reviews HYDRA’S HEADS by Nora Gomringer

Reading this book is like walking through an amusement park. Actually no, that would be too artificial, too unreal, while the book is so very real; there is something authentic and sincere about it, s…

#RivetingReviews: Anna Blasiak reviews WHATEVER THE NAME by Pierre Lepori

There is something delicate and extremely fragile about Pierre Lepori’s poetry and about the character(s) he creates. The voice he writes in is hushed – you really need to be free of any distractions …

Holidays at Grandma’s

Published in / Opublikowane w: Modern Poetry in Translation Date of publication / Data publikacji: Spring 2019 Holidays at Grandma’s A tall willow tree rocked in the wind. You could touch its ca…

* (Drzewa też), Łańcut. Kanibalizm, * (Rozwijam to niebo), * (Tansy ciągle na mnie warczy), Emigracja, * (Łuskam ziarna)

Published in / Opublikowane w: wydawnictwoj Date of publication / Data publikacji: 04/2019 *** Drzewa też załamały dłonienad tą wiosnąz przestrachu,zadziwienia. Obarczone znowu liśćmi,rzędy wyrzutówzz…

#RivetingReviews: Anna Blasiak reviews THE GALLOPING HOUR: FRENCH POEMS by Alejandra Pizarnik

This is a very special collection, consisting of Argentine poet Alejandra Pizarnik’s poems and prose poems written in French during her stay in Paris in the years 1960–1964 and later, back in Buenos A…

#RivetingReviews: Anna Blasiak reviews CARAVAN LULLABIES by Ilzė Butkutė

I keep staring at the titles of Ilzė Butkutė’s two poetry collections – Caravan Lullabies and Carnival Moon – and I’m evermore sure that the alliteration cannot be accidental. The words mirror each ot…

Life on Mars

Published in / Opublikowane w: European Literature Network Date of publication / Data publikacji: August/Sierpień, 2018 Life on Mars is Anna Blasiak’s response to I Can’t Remember My Future Nam…

#‎RivetingReviews: SEVEN STONES by Vénus Khoury-Ghata

Often, without much thought (and quite insensitively), we consider other cultures to be intrinsically different from our own; we imagine our communities as divided from each other by huge crevices tha…

#RivetingReviews: THE GREEN CROW by Kristīne Ulberga

Reading this book is like plunging head-first into deep water. You don’t know what awaits – either in the depths, or even right under the surface. You quickly learn, however, that you should expect an…

Roll of the Dice

Published in / Opublikowane w: Exiled Ink E-Magazine Date of publication / Data publikacji: Issue 1, 2018 ROLL OF THE DICE 2004 It was with perfect clarity that she remembered the first …

Hummingbirds Have Black Hearts

Published in / Opublikowane w: On Life’s Path. Contemporary Writers of Poland, edited by Danuta Błaszak and Anna Maria Mickiewicz Date of publication / Data publikacji: 2017 (Dreammee Little Cit…

*** (A Friendly Fishmonger in the Harbour)

Published in / Opublikowane w: Exiled Ink E-Magazine Date of publication / Data publikacji: Issue 1, 2018 *** A friendly fishmonger in the harbour suddenly spews TV-hatred as acri…

Konkurs na Książkę Artystyczną Świdnica 2018

Kawiarnia przy St James’s Wrena w porze lunchu, nasza (moja i Lisy Kalloo) książka z wierszami i fotografiami znalazła się w finałowej dziesiątce Konkursu na Książkę Artystyczną Świdnica 2018. C…

Exiled Lit Cafe: This ‘Other’ English. Parallel languages of Britain

Monday 14th May 2018 at 7.30 pm, Betsey Trotwood, 56 Farringdon Road, London EC1R 3BL Presenting writers and languages that are/were spoken within various British communities, some very much alive suc…

#RivetingReviews: THE GREAT PLAN B by Justyna Bargielska

Justyna Bargielska has published eight poetry collections in her native Poland, as well as two fiction books and two children’s books. She has won some of the most prestigious literary prizes in Polan…

Translating Rafał Gawin for Talking Transformations

Motivated by Brexit, Talking Transformations first project focuses on the UK and the countries most important to EU migration into and from the UK: respectively Romania & Poland and France & S…

Mirka Szychowiak’s mircrofiction in ASYMPTOTE

Mirka Szychowiak‘s microfiction I’m Scared of Those Dots has just been published in Asymptote’s Translation Tuesday! You can find it here. If you read Polish, you can find he origina…

Wakacje u babci; Pływanie podczas burzy; Kawiarnia przy St James Wrena w porze lunchu; Zbiory; Rakarz

Published in / Opublikowane w: Obszary Przepisane Date of publication / Data publikacji: 10/2017 Wakacje u babci Wysoka wierzba tańczyła z wdziękiem na wietrze. Jej witek można było dotknąć z huśtawki…

(Nie) moje wielkie, greckie wesele; Pływanie podczas burzy; Great Western

Published in / Opublikowane w: Inter Date of publication / Data publikacji: 10/2017 Pływanie podczas burzy Jechaliśmy na rozklekotanym motorze, bez prawa jazdy, przez pola nad kanał pod lasem. …

Irit Amiel’s LIFE. A TEMPORARY TITLE coming out in September

Irit Amiel’s autobiography in my translation is published by Vallentine Mitchell on 14 September 2017. You can pre-order the book directly from the publisher. More information here.…

Radosław Wiśniewski’s poetry in York Literary Review

I have translated a handful of poems by Radosław Wiśniewski and they have been published in the wonderful York Literary Review. What do you think?…

Review of Natalia Fiedorczuk’s “Jak pokochać centra handlowe” in Visegrad Insight

Visegrad Insight (issue 1[10] 2017) has published my review of Natalia Fiedorczuk’s Jak pokochać centra handlowe (“How to Fall in Love with Shopping Malls”). Thank you to Julia Sherw…

‘Hummingbirds Have Black Hearts’ in “On Life’s Path. Contemporary Writers of Poland” edited by Danuta Blaszak and Anna Maria Mickiewicz

My first short story or rather flash fiction in English has just appeared in the collection put together by Danuta Blaszak and Anna Maria Mickiewicz. The book is called On Life’s Path and is par…