Poet. In Polish. In English. In both.
And translator. Translated over 40 books from English into Polish (as Anna Błasiak) as well as fiction and other texts from Polish into English (also as Anna Hyde).
Poetka. Pisze po polsku, po angielsku, i w obu językach razem.
Tłumaczka. Przełożyła ponad 40 książek z angielskiego na polski (jako Anna Błasiak) oraz prozę i inne teksty z polskiego na angielski (także jako Anna Hyde).
What others say / Co mówią inni:
⭐I love the splicing and see sawing between Polish and English, which force a dialogue in between the familiar and the un – and create a fiery urgent rhythm, making room for questioning voices, family, poetry and reader. The photographs build an atmospheric world – of shadows and ambiguity in which the poems are able to find safety – catch their breath and also be cushioned in the warmth of such a spectrum of tone.
SOPHIE HERXHEIMER
⭐ It isn’t exaggeration to say “Deliverance” is pioneering in its method, structure, visuality, genre, and is so to meet, match and elevate its textual content. It reveals its translations as multi-lingual poems, playing between English and Polish as an alterity, a both, instead of an either or.
SJ FOWLER
⭐Od tego właśnie jest poeta/poetka: żeby opowiedzieć mi jakąś prawdę tak dobrze, abym sam mocno ją poczuł i zrozumiał jak swoją. I ta książka właśnie tak – emocjonalnie, prawdziwie – opowiada tę historię. Po kolei, wiersz po wierszu. Niektóre fragmenty są trudne, bolesne, inne – niezwykle piękne, jak choćby ten wiersz bez tytułu, który jest na ostatnich zdjęciach.
PAWEŁ BILIŃSKI
Książka moim zdaniem wybitna! Koniecznie czytajcie!
⭐ Książka Anny Błasiak “Rozpętanie / Deliverance” rozłożyła mnie na łopatki. To opowieść, w której bohaterka przywołuje wspomnienia i pruje ciasny ścieg opresyjnej kultury. Poruszające wiersze o dyskryminacji na wielu poziomach, także o miłości, odnajdowaniu siebie i trudnych doświadczeniach z okresu dorastania w Polsce.
WIOLETTA GRZEGORZEWSKA
My Books / Moje Książki
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Translated authors / Moi autorzy:
What’s new / Co nowego:
- Rozpętanie w Pałacu Potockich w Krakowie
Spotkanie autorskie wokół dwujęzycznej książki Anny Błasiak. „Rozpętanie / Deliverance” (SPP Oddział w Łodzi, 2024). Spotkanie poprowadzi poetka i ilustratorka, Ka Klakla. Wysycona zagrożeniem, grimmowska atmosfera zdjęć … - Biała Lokomotywa 2025
Spotkanie autorskie: Anna Błasiak i Łucja Dudzińska, prowadzenie Daria Danuta Lisiecka i Paweł Jasiński Łazieniec, 6 września 2025 - Psalm to Saint Sabina by Radosław Wiśniewski, translated by Anna Blasiak won the inaugural Trafika Europe’s Andrew Singer Prize for Verse
The winners of inaugural Trafika Europe prizes were Tatjana Gromača’s “Black”, translated by Ena Selimovic (prose), and Radosław Wiśniewski’s “Psalm to Saint Sabina”, translated by …
Hi Anna,
I just wanted to message, spontaneously, because I came across you and your work while looking for a translation of something. I am so relieved and happy to find there is someone translating plenty of Polish literature into English! I am a British composer and writer/poet married to a literature-loving Pole, and have been making my own translations of classic Polish works for some time, wondering darkly what I can do with them and lamenting how unread Brits are in non-Anglophone literature and translated works. I feel particularly passionate about the long-stretching, wide-ranging and incredibly rich literature of the Polish language, filled as it is with extraordinary lives, genre-busting geniuses and great masterworks which people ought to know if they want to consider themselves well-read! I hear discussions about Conrad’s work, for example, puzzling over what literature his very novel creations ‘came from’ without ever considering the literature of his own land! Moreover, Polish culture and people have been feeding into ‘Western’ countries and their countries all along, despite people’s unawareness, so it is important.
So I just wanted to say thank you.
I do really have some idea of what I can do with my complete ‘Dziady’ and my selections (so far) from Kochanowski’s ‘Fraszki’ and the poems of Swirszczynska. But it is daunting. I write very well into English (e.g. I believe my Dziady is much more enjoyably readable and stylistically characterful than the recent published version I have bought for reference), but would always need a patient Polish editor to catch my misreadings (of phrases or of tone/register, I suppose). I do have my wife in the first instance, though. I was intending to approach an organisation like one of the Polish cultural institutes in the UK or the department for Polish studies at my former university, Cambridge – but my wife also advises contacting a literary institute in Poland, and I don’t really know yet. Also as a composer I would most love to make a music-drama out of Dziady, and possibly use some of the other things as musical works too.
Do you think these routes are worth trying? Do you perhaps know of a route *not* to try?
All the best anyway,
Yours,
Rhodri Williams-Wandoch