It's hard to classify her into a particular genre. 'She is not a realistic writer, nor is she a surrealist one. “Olga Tokarczuk deserved the Nobel Prize she is the most important contemporary writer who communicates deep philosophical thoughts in a simple language,” said Yi Lijun, Polish philologist and translator of the Polish author's novel into Chinese, on Thursday. Yi Lijun: Tokarczuk is the greatest contemporary writer

In 2016, Swahn together with Tokarczuk received the first international award from Stockholm's Kulturhuset Stadsteatern for Księgi Jakubowe (“The Books of Jacob'). I started to lose my voice,” he said.īorn in 1959, Jan Henryk Swahn is a Swedish translator from Danish, French, Polish, and Greek, as well as a writer. 'So impressed was I that I couldn't comprehend what happened. When Swedish Academy Secretary Mats Malin announced the verdict on Thursday afternoon, Swahn was present among the people awaiting the decision in the Stockholm Stock Exchange Building hall. 'I tried to be close to her wording and, at the same time, to keep the order in long chains of sentences,' he emphasised.

He added that when translating Tokarczuk's work 'it is very easy to fall into a trap and make her language too flat and neat'. But I started to read and thought, ‘God, she's my writer!’, ' said the translator. 'I hadn't read her books before, and I didn't know anything about her. Jan Henrik Swahn first came across Tokarczuk's work almost 20 years ago, when her publisher proposed that Swahn translates into Swedish 'something Polish'. There is a unique literary friendship between us, which has become more personal over the years - this is how Jan Henrik Swahn, who translated the writer's novels into Swedish, described his relationship with Olga Tokarczuk. Jan Henrik Swahn: There is a unique literary friendship between us

Within the framework of the ©Poland Translation Programme, conducted since 2004 by the Book Institute, 91 translations of the Polish Nobel Prize winner into 28 foreign languages have been supported over the last two decades, including 25 translations into 19 languages in the last three years. Therefore, let us read what Jan Henrik Swahn, Yi Lijun, Jennifer Croft, Ostap Sływynski, and Petr Vidlak are saying. The role played by translators in the international successes of the Nobel Prize winner cannot be underestimated. The echoes of the Nobel Prize Award to Olga Tokarczuk have not faded.

Primeval and other times olga tokarczuk