Papusza with Emilia Kledzik – Encounters with Polish and Ukrainian Literature – S5E2

Bronisława Wajs, known most widely as Papusza (1908-87) is Poland’s, and arguably the world’s, most well-known Roma poet, though little of her work has been translated into English until recently, and most translations into languages other than Polish have been secondary translations from Polish. In this episode, we look at some of the newly translated poems from Papusza’s memoir of the Volhynia massacre of 1943-44, Tears of Blood and a separate poem ostensibly about mushrooms. We consider the problems of translating and studying Papusza’s work, given the availability of materials, challenges posed by the language and existing editions, as well as methodological changes in how minority cultures are studied, and we discuss what some newly available letters reveal about her poems. Learn more about this episode, and see the biography of the guest on the Polish Cultural Institute New York's website: https://shorturl.at/CvRyF Access the playlist of the entire series: https://bit.ly/47Q7xHL Bartek Remisko, Curator and Executive Producer David A. Goldfarb, Host & Producer Natalia Iyudin, Producer