In the Shadow.
Translator’s Role in the
Contemporary Literature

Translators are one the most underestimated professional groups. Too rarely do we talk about their significance for the reader-writer meetings. They bear weighty responsibility, as it is their craft, sensitivity, and intelligence that ensure the success of the meeting; of the intimate interaction between the readers and the text – between the readers and the writer’s vision and sensitivity. Will the readers feel as if they were reading the original? Will they enter the writer’s world, feeling the rhythm of the words, the taste of the tale, and the metre of breath prescribed by the writer (to use the beautiful description of Anna Wasilewska)? Can they – co-authors, in fact – stay in the shadow, without overwhelming the translation with their individualities? It is a great luck for a writer to find somebody like that. Same with readers. And yet, translators are often deemed mere craftsmen – background figures with not much significance. Sharing their thoughts on the issue will be Antonia Lloyd-Jones, Jacek Dehnel, and Maciej Świerkocki.