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(b. 1982) – a graphic artist and author of illustrated children’s books. She graduated from the Graphic Arts Faculty at the Academy of Fine Arts…
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Julia Hartwig
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The Book Institute offers translation of excerpt from Julia Hartwig’s poetry in German. Interested parties are kindly invited to contact us.
(1921-2017) – poet, essayist, literary translator from French and English, children’s books author.
She debuted in 1936 in the school magazine “W słońce”. A student of Polish and Romance studies at the University of Warsaw (including its clandestine incarnation) and the Catholic University of Lublin. In 1945 she published a few poems in “Wybór wierszy poetów lubelskich” (A Selection of Poems by Lublin Poets) and in “Odrodzenie”. As she continued her literary work, her poems, translations and reviews were placed in periodicals including “Nowa Kultura”, “Świat”, “Nowe Książki”, “Poezja”. In 1963 she became a member of the Polish PEN Club. Her poetry was always characterised by its individuality, not following creative fashions and vogues, as well as a reluctance to adopt a wholesale vision of the world and a single emotional tenor.
In her subtle and sophisticated works, which do not always seek to be comprehensible to the reader, she often combined opposites. She juxtaposed solemnity with irony, and despair with joie de vivre. Oneiric poems full of imagery and visions stood side by side with works based on a skilled depiction of the concrete. All this stemmed from intellectual maturity, the awareness that the richness of the world given to us – in all its light and darkness – cannot be reduced to one formula, one judgment or programme.
The poet usually made use of a polished, “quietened” form, avoiding chaos and randomness. She was one of the few Polish authors who mastered prose poetry, perhaps influenced by her long-term closeness to French literature. Hartwig translated works by authors including Apollinaire, Rimbaud, Max Jacob, Cendrars and Supervielle. She also translated from English, and her crowning achievement in that regard was the extensive 1992 anthology “Opiewam nowoczesnego człowieka. Antologia poezji amerykańskiej” (The Modern Man I Sing. An Anthology of American Poetry), compiled with Artur Międzyrzecki – poet, and privately Julia Hartwig’s husband.
Czesław Miłosz perfectly described Hartwig’s work in “Zeszyty literackie”: “Someone said that every poem is a piece of autobiography, even if it has nothing to do with a confession. I cannot help but read Julia Hartwig’s poems by arranging them into an autobiographical story. The person telling it is a woman from the Polish intelligentsia who has experienced war, is well-travelled, with a considerable art expertise, fluent in foreign languages, at home in three cities: Warsaw, Paris and New York. This person is also a poet, and if I was looking for a descriptor, I’d choose “refined”, by which I think I understand her circumspection. Her life as it appears in this poetry was full of tragedy and defeat, but she found a way to speak about it in a roundabout way, by naming the images appearing before the eye. Her voice is even, not lowered to a whisper or raised to a scream”.
Hartwig worked for over ten years with the Polish Radio, writing screenplays for children’s radio programmes.
She also published prose: “Dziennik amerykański” (The American Diary) from her stay in America, the travel journal “Zawsze powroty” (Always Returning), and monographs on Apollinaire and Gérard de Nerval.
Her poetry was widely translated and published in Polish poetry anthologies in languages including Albanian, Bulgarian, French, Macedonian, Greek, Finnish, Serbian, Swedish, Ukrainian, Hungarian, Japanese and Hebrew.
She was awarded multiple scholarships for stays in France and the United States and received many awards, including the Jurzykowski Foundation Award, the Thornton Wilder Prize awarded by the Translation Center at Columbia University, and the Georg Trakl Prize awarded in Austria for poetry; for her translations of French literature, she was awarded the Prix de Traduction by the Hautvilliers foundation. She received multiple nominations for the Nike Literary Award, as well as the 2014 Wisława Szymborska Award. In 2015 she received the Gold Gloria Artis Medal for Merit to Culture. In 2011 she was decorated with the Grand Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta, and in 2016 she became an Officer of the French Legion of Honour.
Bibliography
poetry and poetic prose:
- Pożegnania, Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1956.
- Wolne ręce, Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1969.
- Dwoistość, Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1971.
- Czuwanie, Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1978.
- Dziennik amerykański, Warsaw Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1980.
- Chwila postoju, Cracow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1980.
- Obcowanie, Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1987.
- Czułość, Cracow: Społeczny Instytut Wydawniczy „Znak”, 1992.
- Nim opatrzy się zieleń, Cracow: Społeczny Instytut Wydawniczy „Znak”, 1995.
- Jak długo trwać będą dawne imiona, Przemyśl: „Gdzie indziej”, 1996.
- Zobaczone, Cracow: Wydawnictwo a5, 1999.
- Przemija postać świata, Warsaw: Prószyński i S-ka 1999.
- Zawsze od nowa, Warsaw: Twój styl, 1999.
- Nie ma odpowiedzi, Warsaw: Sic!, 2001.
- Błyski, Warsaw: Sic!, 2002.
- Wiersze amerykańskie, Warsaw: Sic!, 2002.
- Mówiąc nie tylko do siebie, Warsaw: Sic!, 2003.
- Bez pożegnania, Warsaw: Sic!, 2004.
- Zwierzenia i błyski, Warsaw: Sic!, 2004.
- W objęciach świata, Warsaw Anagram, 2004.
- Zwierzenia i błyski, Warsaw: Sic!, 2004.
- To wróci, Warsaw: Sic!, 2007.
- Przywoływanie, Lublin: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Marii Curie-Skłodowskiej, 2008.
- Trzecie błyski, Warsaw: Sic!, 2008.
- Jasne niejasne, Cracow: Wydawnictwo a5, 2009.
- Gorzkie żale, Cracw: Wydawnictwo a5, 2011.
- Zapisane, Cracow: Wydawnictwo a5, 2013.
- Spojrzenie, Cracow: Wydawnictwo a5, 2016.
Essays, journals, non-fiction:
- Z niedalekich podróży, Warsaw: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1954.
- Zawsze powroty. Dzienniki podróży, Warsaw: Sic!, 2001; second edition corrected: Warszawa: Sic!, 2005.
- Pisane przy oknie, Warsaw: Biblioteka „Więzi”, 2004.
- Wybrańcy losu, Warsaw: Sic!, 2006.
- Podziękowanie za gościnę, Gdańsk: słowo/obraz terytoria, 2007.
- Dziennik, vol. 1–2, Cracow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2011.
- Dziennik vol.2, Cracow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2014.
- Największe szczęście, największy ból. Jarosława Mikołajewskiego rozmowy z Julią Hartwig, Cracow: Wydawnictwo a5, 2014.
- Życie to podróż, to ocean. Z Julią Hartwig rozmawia Artur Cieślar, Poznań: Zysk i S-ka, 2014.
monography:
- Apollinaire, Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1962.
- Gérard de Nerval, Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1972.
children’s literature:
- Przygody Poziomki [with Artur Międzyrzecki], vol. 1, 2, Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1961, 1964.
- Wielki pościg [with Artur Międzyrzecki], Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1969.
- Zguba Michałka, Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1969.
- Bajki zza kurtyny [with: Artur Międzyrzecki, Aleksander Rymkiewicz], Warsaw: Centralny Ośrodek Metodyki Upowszechniania Kultury, 1972.
translation work:
from English:
- Claude Roy, Ładny kwiat, Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1968.
- Marianne Moore, Wiersze wybrane [wraz z Ludmiła Marjańska] Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1980.
- Max Jacob, Poematy prozą [with Adam Ważyk], Cracow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1983.
- Robert Bly, Jadąc przez Ohio i inne wiersze, Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1985.
- Allen Ginsberg, Znajomi z tego świata [with Artur Międzyrzecki, Andrzej Szuba and Piotr Sommer], Cracow: Wydawnictwo M, 1993.
- Dzikie brzoskwinie: antologia poetek amerykańskich [collective translation], Warsaw Sic!, 2003.
- Silvia Plath, Poezje wybrane [with Jan Rostworowski and Teresa Truszkowska] Cracow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2004.
- William Carlos Williams, Spóźniony śpiewak, Wrocław: Biuro Literackie, 2009.
from French:
- Elsa Triolet, Kochankowie z Avignonu i inne opowiadania, Warsaw: Czytelnik 1949.
- Louis Aragon, Komuniści vol. 1–5 [collective translation], Warsaw: Czytelnik, 1950–1951.
- Théophile Gautier (son), Przygody barona Münchhausena, Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1951.
- Jean Marcenac, Urok szatana Warsaw: Książka i Wiedza, 1951.
- Denis Diderot, Wybór pism filozoficznych [second translator Julian Rogoziński], Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1953.
- Jean le Rond d’Alembert, Wstęp do Encyklopedii, Warsaw: Państwowe Wydawnictwo Naukowe, 1954.
- Blaise Cendrars, Poezje [wraz z Adam Ważyk], Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1962.
- Guillaume Apollinaire, Poeta zamordowany [with Artur Międzyrzecki], Cracow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1966.
- Eugène Delacroix, Dzienniki, vol.1–2 [with Joanna Guze], Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Ossolineum, 1968.
- Ja to ktoś inny. Korespondencja Artura Rimbaud [with Artur Międzyrzecki] Warszawa: Czytelnik, 1970.
- Guillaume Apollinaire, Nowe przekłady [with Artur Międzyrzecki], Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1973.
- Guillaume Apollinaire, Listy do Madeleine Cracow: Wydawnictwo Literackie 1974.
- Blaise Cendrars, Poezje wybrane [with Adam Ważyk], Warsaw: Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza, 1977.
- Guillaume Apollinaire, Piosenka niekochanego i inne wiersze (with Artur Międzyrzecki), Cracow: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 1994
- Korespondencja Fryderyka Chopina z George Sand i z jej dziećmi [vo. I/II] Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy 1981
- Pierre Reverdy, Poezje wybrane, Warsaw: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1986.
- Guillaume Apollinaire, Wiersze miłosne [with Artur Międzyrzecki], Warsaw: Wydawnictwo Pavo, 1992.
- Guillaume Apollinaire, Wiersze i listy miłosne Warsaw: Prószyński i S-ka, 1998.
- Henri Michaux, Seans z workiem oraz inne rady i przestrogi, Warsaw: Sic!, 2004.
Translations
Czech:
- Apollinaire. Život umělecké Paříže, trans. Vendulka Zapletalová, Praha: Odeon, 1966.
English:
- in anthology: Polish poetry of the last two decades of communist rule: spoiling cannibal’s fun, trans. Stanisław Barańczak, Clare Cavanagh, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 1991.
- Poezja wybrane / Selected Poems [text in Polish and English languages], trans. John and Bogdana Carpenter, Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2008.
- In Praise of the Unfinished [selected poetry], trans. John and Bogdana Carpenter, New York: Knopf, 2008.
- It will return [To wróci], trans. John and Bogdana Carpenter, Evanston: Northwestern University Press, 2012.
French:
- Apollinaire, trans. Jean-Yves Erhel, Paris: Mercure de France, 1972.
- Hablando no solo para uno mismo [selected poetry], trans. Fernardo Presa Gonzalez, Madrid: Huerga y Fierro, 2013.
German:
- Die verlorene gute Laune [Zguba Michałka], trans. Halina Więcławska, Warsaw: Nasza Księgarnia, 1973.
- Und alles wird erinnert [selected poetry], trans. Bernard Hartmann, Frankfurt: Verlag Neue Kritik, 2013.
Hungarian:
- in anthology: Titkos szabadság, trans. Kerényi Grácia, Budapest: Európa, 1982.
- Apollinaire, trans. Irén Fejér, Budapest: Palatinus, 2000.
Italian:
- in anthology: Polki: la voce di undici poetessee polacche, trans. Irena Conti, Messina: Carboneditore, 1990.
- Sotto quest’isola [text in Polish and Italian languages], trans. Silvano De Fanti, Roma: Donzelli, 2007.
- Lampi / Błyski text in Polish and Italian languages], trans. Francesco Groggia, Milano: Libri Schweiwiller, 2008.
- Leggendo i fondi di mare [selected from Czułość, text in Polish and Italian languages], trans. Margherita Bacigalupo, Osnago: Edizioni Pulcinoelefante, 2008.
- Otto poemi in prosa [selected from Mówiąc nie tylko do siebie, text in Polish and Italian languages], trans. Margherita Bacigalupo, Milano: All’Insegna del Pesce d’Oro, 2008.
Romanian:
- Versuri americane [Wiersze amerykańskie], trans. Constantin Geambașu, Vasile Moga, București: ePublishers.info SRL, 2023.
Russian:
- Apollinaire, trans. Jurij Abyzow, Moskwa: Progress, 1971.
- in anthology: Польские поэты 20 века. Антология, trans. Wladimir Britaniszski, Natalja Astafjewa, Sankt-Peterburg: Aletejja, 2000.
- in anthology: Польские поэтессы. Антология, trans. Natalja Astafiewa, Sankt-Peterburg: Aletejja, 2002.
Serbian:
- Viđeno i druge pesme [Zobaczone], trans. Biserka Rajčić, Vršac: Knijzevna Opstina Vršac, 2009.
Spanish:
- Dualidad. Antología poética [selected poetry], trans. Antonio Benítez Burraco, Anna Sobieska, Madrid: Vaso Roto, 2013.
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