WHO: Professor Jerzy Jarniewicz, University of Łódź
WHEN: 8 October 2025 | 6.30pm
WHERE: University of Ulster, Belfast Campus | BC-LG-304
‘Seventy-five years after his death, George Orwell remains a writer whose works politicians of divergent ideological backgrounds still find pertinent to the present-day political situation. What makes Orwell’s position unique is the fact that both ends of the political spectrum try equally hard to appropriate him, seeing the writer as an exponent of their worldview.
The most recent translation of his work into Polish claims to offer us “the Orwell of the Left”, as opposed to what the supposed conservative or nationalist translations have been doing till now. This leads me to enquire into the possibility of political translation. What makes translation political? Is it possible to translate the same text in a right-wing and a left-wing manner? Is there a “left-wing manner of translation” and what would it consist in? Trying to answer these questions brings me to affirm literary translation - with its plurality of voices and the right to choose between competing versions - as one of the warrants of democracy.’
Prof Jarniewicz (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jerzy_Jarniewicz) is arguably Poland’s most prominent critic of contemporary Anglophone literature, as well as a translator and an award-winning poet – his collection Mondo cane earned him, in 2022, Poland’s most prestigious literary prize, the Nike Award.
