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Indiana University Bloomington

Bill JohnstonBill Johnston

Associate Professor of Comparative Literature

(812) 855-6242

Ballantine Hall 919

billj at indiana.edu

My passion is literary translation. When I’m not translating from the Polish, I read extensively in international literature; I’m also deeply involved in ALTA, the American Literary Translators Association.

In Comparative Literature I teach workshops in literary translation. What I most enjoy is getting to grips with the translation of specific texts, and so a large part of our classes involves workshopping translations from a wide range of languages into English. We also spend time comparing often radically different translations of major works of literature and discussing the consequences of different approaches to the job of translation. It quickly becomes apparent that there is no such thing as a “perfect translation,” and that the translator’s work is creative in a very profound way—however “faithful’ a translation may be, it still involves the production of a new and different work of literature.

As a translator I’ve been fortunate to have the opportunity of translating works from many different periods and genres. This has included present-day novels by such authors as Magdalena Tulli and Jerzy Pilch; contemporary poetry by Tadeusz Różewicz and others; 20th-century authors such as Witold Gombrowicz; “classics” by Stefan Żeromski and Jan Kochanowski; and 19th-century texts like Juliusz Słowacki’s 1835 play Balladina. I encourage students to experiment too, and in class we work on prose, poetry, and drama. It’s been wonderful to see students publishing their own translations and presenting their work at conferences.

My own training is in applied linguistics, not in comparative literature. This means I bring a somewhat different perspective to the work of literary translation. I have a split appointment between Comparative Literature and Second Language Studies, where I conduct research on areas such as the moral dimensions of teaching.

Selected Translations:
Wiesław Myśliwski: Stone Upon Stone. New York, NY: Archipelago Books. In progress.

Andrzej Stasiuk: Fado. Urbana, IL: Dalkey Archive Press. In press.

Jerzy Pilch: The Mighty Angel. Rochester, NY: Open Letter Press. 2009.

Eugeniusz Tkaczyszyn-Dycki: Peregrinary. Brookline, MA: Zephyr Books. 2008.
(finalist for the Three Cent Translated Book of the Year Award)

Magdalena Tulli: Flaw. New York, NY: Archipelago Books. 2007.

Stefan Żeromski: The Coming Spring. London: Central European University Press. 2007.

Tadeusz Różewicz: new poems. New York, NY: Archipelago Books. 2007.
(winner of the 2008 Found in Translation Award; finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Poetry Award, 2008).

Krzysztof Kamil Baczyński: White Magic and Other Poems. Los Angeles, CA: Green Integer. 2005.

Witold Gombrowicz: Polish Memories. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press. 2004.

Witold Gombrowicz: Bacacay. New York, NY: Archipelago Books. 2004.

Magdalena Tulli: Dreams and Stones. New York, NY: Archipelago Books. 2004.
(winner of the 2005 AATSEEL Translation Award)

Gustaw Herling: The Noonday Cemetery and Other Stories. New York, NY: New Directions. 2003.
(LA Times Notable Book of the Year, 2003)

Jerzy Pilch: His Current Woman. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press/Hydra Books. 2002.

Stefan Żeromski: The Faithful River. Evanston, IL: Northwestern University Press. 1999.