Tokarczuk 97

Interview with Jennifer Croft by Weronika Szwebs

Photo from author’s personal archive

It Took Me Ten Years and a Lot of Work to Find a Publisher

How did you first come across translate? Was your choice based Olga Tokarczuk’s books? What on personal preference or practi- was it that attracted you to her cal calculation? writing? I loved Flights. I was working on I found Olga’s books at the Uni- a PhD in Comparative Literature versity of Iowa library, and I loved at Northwestern University by everything about them. Her psy- then, and the playful experimen- chological insights, her prose style, tation of Flights was the perfect the way she sympathizes with her complement to the critical theory characters. I found a way to get in and literary history I was reading. touch with Antonia Lloyd-Jones, It was not at all a practical choice. Olga’s other English translator, I knew it would be difficult to find and she helped me with my first a publisher for the book in English, translations and put me in touch given how unusual it was. with Olga, too. Flights was published by Fitzcar- Why, of all Tokarczuk’s books, raldo Editions, a young, small was Flights the one you decided to press based in London… 98 Czas Kultury 3/2019

It took me ten years and a lot work for two years, and then I got lucky have been a challenge. What led to find a publisher. Finally, we did again with two fellowships to go you to choose Flights for the title? find the right match, and things to Poland: a FLAS and a Fulbright. What were the other solutions have been wonderful since then. I started in Krakow and then spent that crossed your mind? We publish with Riverhead in the a year in Warsaw, which I learned U.S., as well. so much from, in so many different I love your phrasing of “myste- ways. rious and familiar at the same Learning Polish does not seem to time.” That’s exactly why I chose be an obvious choice for an Amer- Did you develop any intellectual “Flights” rather than “Runners.” In ican student. The Polish language and literary fascinations with English, “runners” just sounds like seems to be complicated and not the Polish authors during your “joggers.” It’s not evocative at all. very practical. Moreover, a lot of university studies? Which authors “Flights” means many things: flee- attention directed to the region did you find the most captivating? ing, flights of fancy, and of course, of Central and Eastern Europe is air travel, which is a guiding thread drawn by Russian culture, which I’ve always been most interested throughout the book. Now, I actu- is reflected even in the structures in contemporary women writers, ally think that title is one of the of the Slavic Departments. If the in any language. The first Polish best decisions I’ve ever made. choice is not obvious, there might writer I worked on was Hanna be an interesting story behind it. Krall. Olga Tokarczuk was the next. How has your relationship with the Polish language started? Did your Fulbright scholarship in Poland help to develop or change In fact my love affair with Polish these interests? Were you close to did begin with Russian. I tell my the academic environment and Russian story in Homesick, an literary circles? illustrated memoir that is coming out in English from Unnamed I attended some classes at the Uni- Press this fall, and in Polish and versity of Warsaw and made some Spanish (its original language) next friends that way. It also took me year. But I majored in English and a time to be able to speak Polish. Russian and minored in Creative I think the main thing it enabled Writing in college, and as I was me to do was start to understand preparing to graduate, it seemed to Polish culture and everyday life, me the only way to combine those and to travel around the country, three interests would be through which I did as much as I could. translation. At the time, there were not many MFA programs The Polish title, Bieguni, refers in Literary Translation, but the to the Russian religious sect, University of Iowa was offering a faction of Old Believers, who one. Through a strange sequence deemed that constant movement of events, I found I was unable to is the only way to escape the devil. continue studying Russian when The name is not common knowl- I arrived, but they were offering edge in Polish, but it resembles another Slavic language instead: the verb ‘biegać’, to run – which Polish. I got extremely lucky with makes it sound both mysterious a wonderful professor named and familiar at the same time. Christopher Wertz, who taught me Translating it into English must