Hermeneutics of Memory: On House with Two Towers by Maciej Zaremba Bielawski Cover Image

Hermeneutyka pamięci. O Domu z dwiema wieżami Macieja Zaremby Bielawskiego
Hermeneutics of Memory: On House with Two Towers by Maciej Zaremba Bielawski

Author(s): Michał Kopczyk
Subject(s): Language and Literature Studies, Studies of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu w Białymstoku
Keywords: autobiography; intercultural translation; self-discovery; self-therapy

Summary/Abstract: This article concerns an autobiographical narrative written by a Polish-Swedish writer and journalist Maciej Zaremba Bielawski (born in 1951). It focuses on the process of translating concepts and categories related to the Polish realities into the language and system of concepts that are comprehensive to Swedish readers. This process occurs at three levels: linguistic (Polish versus Swedish), cultural (realities related to the Polish, Swedish and Jewish cultures), and identity (a narrator who identifies himself with three cultures, though to a different degree and in different ways). The narrator lives in a few cultural and linguistic spaces, distancing himself from each of them. Keeping the distance allows him to focus on himself and to practice self-reflection (the main motivation for writing the book in question). It also instigates a process that is not only self-cognitive but also self-therapeutic for the writer.

  • Issue Year: 2020
  • Issue No: 17
  • Page Range: 43-54
  • Page Count: 12
  • Language: Polish