Self-Translation: Between National Literature and “World Citizenship” (the Case of Maria Kuncewiczowa and Janusz Głowacki)
Self-Translation: Between National Literature and “World Citizenship” (the Case of Maria Kuncewiczowa and Janusz Głowacki)

Summary/Abstract: Around 1949 Maria Kuncewiczowa worked on the project of ‘world citizenship’ – a remedy for those writers whom circumstances made stateless. In her view, the category of ‘world citizenship’ allowed to see one’s country from the perspective of the world. She also argued that knowledge of a foreign language was a promising way of opening up national, regional and doctrinal ‘ghettos’. Following her ideas, the article presents selftranslation as a phenomenon that exceeds one national context and creates a discursive space in which literature denies clear linguistic and cultural borders. After a brief outline of self-translation in the 20th-century Polish literature, the article analyses Kuncewiczowa’s self-translation of the play Thank You for the Rose (1950–1960) and Janusz Głowacki’s assisted self-translation of the play Antygona w Nowym Jorku (1992). In discussing the two case studies, the article pays particular attention to the idea of ‘world citizenship’ in relation to the concept of national literature.

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