Migrant Literature
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english edition 1 2018 Migrant Literature issue editors JOANNA KOSMALSKA and JERZY JARNIEWICZ KRIS VAN HEUCKELOM The Polish Migrant Experience in the Graphic Novel ANNA KAŁUŻA Polish Poetry on the Isles: In the Evenings We Feel Nostalgic DECLAN KIBERD Home and Away: Ireland, Poland and Others DOROTA KOŁODZIEJCZYK The Cosmopolitics of Polish Fiction from the British Isles TOMASZ DOBROGOSZCZ New Fiction Interrogating the Identity DARIUSZ NOWACKI The Promised Isles: A Critical Reconnaissance teksty drugie · Institute of Literary Research Polish Academy of Sciences index 337412 · pl issn 0867-0633 EDITORIAL BOARD Agata Bielik-Robson (uk), Włodzimierz Bolecki, Maria Delaperrière (France), Ewa Domańska, Grzegorz Grochowski, Zdzisław Łapiński, Michał Paweł Markowski (usa), Maciej Maryl, Jakub Momro, Anna Nasiłowska (Deputy Editor-in-Chief), Leonard Neuger (Sweden), Ryszard Nycz (Editor-in-Chief), Bożena Shallcross (usa), Marta Zielińska, Tul’si Bhambry (English Translator and Language Consultant), Justyna Tabaszewska, Marta Bukowiecka (Managing Editor) ADVISORY BOARD Edward Balcerzan, Stanisław Barańczak (usa) , Małgorzata Czermińska, Paweł Dybel, Knut Andreas Grimstad (Norway), Jerzy Jarzębski, Bożena Karwowska (Canada), Krzysztof Kłosiński, Dorota Krawczyńska, Vladimir Krysinski (Canada), Luigi Marinelli (Italy), Arent van Nieukerken (the Netherlands), Ewa Rewers, German Ritz (Switzerland), Henryk Siewierski (Brasil), Janusz Sławiński , Ewa Thompson (usa), Joanna Tokarska-Bakir, Tamara Trojanowska (Canada), Alois Woldan (Austria), Anna Zeidler-Janiszewska ADDRESS Nowy Świat 72, room a40, 00-330 Warsaw, Poland phone +48 22 657 28 07, phone/fax +48 22 828 32 06 e-mail: [email protected] www.tekstydrugie.pl GRAPHIC DESIGN Marcin Hernas | tessera.org.pl LANGUAGE EDITING Andrew Tomlinson TRANSLATION Marek Kazmierski and the authors TEXT FORMATTING Maciej Grabski TYPESETTING Publishing House of the Institute of Literary Research, Polish Academy of Sciences english edition 1 2018 special issue Institute of Literary Research Polish Academy of Sciences www.tekstydrugie.pl theory of literature · critique · interpretation “Pro Cultura Litteraria” Association 2 table of contents Migrant Literature foreword 5 ANNA NASIŁOWSKA Emigration and Migration essays 9 TOMASZ DOBROGOSZCZ Mimicry and Hybridity: New Fiction Interrogating the Identity of Polish Post-2004 Migrants in the UK 24 ELWIRA M. GROSSMAN Staging Polish Migration in Transcultural Drama: The Question of Multiple Language Use in Great Britain’s Theatre 43 KRIS VAN HEUCKELOM Manual Labour with a Pink Touch: The Polish Migrant Experience as Depicted in Agata Wawryniuk’s Graphic Novel Rozmówki polsko-angielskie [Polish- English Phrase Book] 59 ANNA KRONENBERG Women’s Migrations: Strategies of Regaining One’s Voice and Body in Literary Works by Polish Women in the UK and Ireland interpretations 88 DOROTA KOŁODZIEJCZYK In Search of Migrant Writing: The Cosmopolitics of Polish Fiction from the British Isles 113 BORBÁLA FARAGÓ “More Edges, Less Words”: Memory and Trauma in Wioletta Grzegorzewska’s Poetry commentaries 123 DECLAN KIBERD Home and Away: Ireland, Poland and Others 131 JOANNA KOSMALSKA Writing by Poles in the UK and Ireland: The Transnational Turn in Polish Literature 149 ANNA KAŁUŻA Polish Poetry on the Isles: In the Evenings We Feel Nostalgic 165 DARIUSZ NOWACKI The Promised Isles: A Critical Reconnaissance 187 DIRK UFFELMANN Self-Proletar ianization in Prose by Poles Migrating to Germany, Ireland and the UK investigations 208 JOANNA ŚLÓSARSKA Self-Narration as a Strategy of Negotiating Identity in the Texts of Polish Migrants Residing in the UK and Ireland since 2004 216 MIECZYSŁAW DĄBROWSKI Migrant Prose: Sources and Meaning 237 MAŁGORZATA ZDUNIAK- Other Emigrations? (Im)Possible -WIKTOROWICZ Encounters of Prose Written by Authors of Polish Descent in Germany and the UK 259 CRISTINA ŞANDRU Watching the New “Subaltern” in Britain: East-Central European Migrants and Their Filmic Avatars Foreword Anna Nasiłowska Introduction: Emigration and Migration DOI: 10.18318/td.2018.en.1.1 Anna Nasiłowska, Professor, Polish Academy of Sciences, migrant literature? No: migrant literature. The wave of Institute of Literary Eemigration Poland has experienced since 2004 is not the Research. She is a result of political coercion, nor are the economic reasons for member of the Lite- migration entirely unambiguous. These departures are often rature and Gender motivated by curiosity and the desire for adventure, and the Research Team and the deputy editor choice to relocate can also be made by young people in an of Teksty Drugie. Her attempt to quickly achieve independence from their families. recent publications The sense that one can always return has a reassuring effect, include a biography though such returns are often hindered by numerous obsta- of Maria Pawlikow- cles. Emigration is a bold choice. ska-Jasnorzewska (2010), selected works Even in the 19th century, the situation wasn’t always so un- by Stefania Zahorska ambiguous. Did Mickiewicz really have to emigrate? Probably: (2010), a book of he left Russia in a hurry, just before the political crackdown historical reportage that could have resulted in the confiscation of his passport titled Wolny agent had he delayed his departure, leaving him stranded in the Umeda i druga Japonia [Free Agent Russian Empire. But the matter isn’t as clear-cut in Słowacki’s Umeda and Another case. Did he have to leave? He wanted to. Life in the West of- Japan] (2013), the po- fered him good stimuli and provided a sense of freedom from etry volume Żywioły censorship, and independence from political circumstances. [Elements] (2014) and Similarly, Chopin left in hopes of achieving artistic fulfillment. Dyskont słów [Word Discount Store] (2016). He would have been a mere provincial artist in Congress Po- Co-editor of Encyklo- land. Słowacki would not have seen a single Shakespearean pedia gender [Gender drama performed on stage – but he did in London. He would Encyclopedia] (2014). 6 migrant literature later look back upon the day he saw the legendary actor Edmund Kean in Richard III as an extraordinarily happy one. Such motivations for emigration seem similar to contemporary ones. The difference between migration and emigration lies in just one phoneme, “e,” but the prefix is not an indicator of its virtual nature, as is the case with many words equipped with an initial “e,” such as e-book or e-shopping. It is emigra- tion that has a hard, specific meaning, while migration is a fluid and variable state. Among the Polish refugees of the twentieth century, the ones who found themselves in the most unambiguous circumstances were those who fled in September 1939. They truly had no choice; many faced certain death. The émigré political elites played a very important role abroad, while writers, perhaps with the exception of such eccentric authors as Gombrowicz, applied their talents by penning columns and stoking the same passions that the wartime conditions had ignited within them. Later, they took up the political duties that arose from their refusal to accept the resolutions regarding the status of Poland made late in World War II. Though emigration and migration are differentiated by the presence or absence of one phoneme, they differ substantially in terms of the ideological tone of the literature they produce. While the emigrant literature of the 19th century was mysti- cal and visionary, its twentieth-century counterpart was political. It was concerned with topics that it perceived to be its duty to the homeland; it voiced demands for restitution and forged strong bonds with the past. It remained ready to act and to self-organize, producing its own cultural institutions such as the still-existing Sikorski Institute, the Polish Social and Cultural Organization and its library, and the Polish archives in London. Emigrant literature looked back upon the past not just because of the nostalgia consuming writers: it was also a political postulate, one that grew increasingly utopian as the years went on. It was also occupied with everything that was the object of censorship in Poland: the experience of the Gulag system, reckonings with grand European politics and its own literary output as a testimony of resistance. The dominant tone of migrant literature is entirely different. Thematically, it en- compasses intercultural relations, including the juxtaposition between a person’s own cultural baggage – their behavior and stereotypes brought over from their birthplace – and their new environment, as well as the problems that emerge when attempting to adapt to a new location, to forge a new self and a detached attitude towards any permanent definitions. Migrants have often left their home country not because they had to, but because they could, and so the answer to the question of why they did so is not simple: perhaps their mothers were overbearing, or maybe they wanted to face a much more interesting challenge than the ones offered them by everyday life in Poland. The bulk of twentieth-century Polish emigrant literature was produced by writers who had honed their craft in Poland and had matured as FOREWORD ANNA N A S I łO W S K A INTRODUCTION : EMIGRATION AND MIGRATION 7 creative individuals prior to 1939. They brought their expectations, language and concepts with them. The literature of twenty-first century Polish migrants is largely written by people who debuted only after leaving their home country. It is this ex- perience of moving to a new, rather