Reportage III: Mikołaj Grynberg and Patrycja Dołowy - Encounters with Polish Literature - S3E11

Mikołaj Grynberg and Patrycja Dołowy with Sean Gasper Bye
Mikołaj Grynberg trained as a psychologist, and is a widely exhibited photographer and writer who collects oral history about Polish Jews. In 2012 he began publishing oral histories, beginning with Survivors of the 20th Century, consisting of interviews with Polish Jews who had emigrated to Israel. His second collection, I Accuse Auschwitz are tales of generational trauma from interviews with children of Holocaust survivors. The stories discussed in this episode from I’d Like to Say Sorry, but There’s No One to Say Sorry To are fiction based in the stories he has heard from and about Polish Jews.
Patrycja Dołowy is a writer, science journalist, artist, and activist interested in feminist and Jewish issues, a cofounder of the Mama Foundation, and since 2022 has been director of the Warsaw Jewish Community Center (JCC). Her book, Treasures: Hunters and Protectors of Jewish Memory, weaves together stories of formerly Jewish property and Jewish objects that remain in Poland, focusing on their caretakers both Jewish and non-Jewish who bear the responsibility of preserving Jewish memory. In addition to Treasures, discussed here, she is the author of I’ll Return when you’re Asleep: Conversations with Children of the Holocaust. Both works are as yet untranslated.
In this episode we discuss some of the particular issues and ethical responsibilities of translators working on reportage and the different expectations that readers in Poland and the United States have when reading journalistic works that present themselves as factual. We talk about what these works have to say about the Jewish Revival in contemporary Poland, and we consider the particular innovations in the form of literary nonfiction exemplified in the works under consideration, drawing comparisons particularly to new forms of radio journalism and podcasts in the U.S.
Encounters with Polish Literature is a video series for anyone interested in literature and the culture of books and reading. Each month, host David A. Goldfarb will present a new topic in conversation with an expert on that author or book or movement in Polish literature. More about the Encounters with Polish Literature series and the timeline.
Learn more about this episode, and see the biography of the guests on the Polish Cultural Institute New York's website: instytutpolski.pl/newyork/wp-...
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Bartek Remisko, Executive Producer
David A. Goldfarb, Host & Producer
Natalia Iyudin, Producer