On 28 September 2024 at 6pm, the Modjeska Art & Culture Club will have the pleasure of presenting a Polish writer, Piotr D. Siemion, a Warsaw-based novelist and translator, who also works as a corporate attorney. The event will be held in a private residence in Brentwood and will be open only to Club members and VIP guests of the speaker. RSVP prezes@modjeska.org. The interview will be conducted by Dr. Jerzy Kossek, specialist in Polish-American literature who teaches at University of California, Irvine and is a Modjeska Club member.
Piotr D. Siemion is an accomplished novelist and essay author, writing in English and his native Polish. He was raised in the academic center of Wrocław (the pre-1945 Breslau) in Poland, where he studied English Literature and was, in his own words, "a bit of a counterculture figure." After his early debut as a literary translator, he spent his formative years in New York City. In 1988 he traveled to the United States as a Fulbright scholar, where he wrote his doctoral dissertation on the subject of American twentieth-century novels. Between 1988 and 2000 he moved between the US (New York) and Canada (Montreal), during which time he published a series of translations, among others, of Yeats' poetry and Tom Clancy's prose. He has translated Thomas Pynchon (the ingenious translation of The Crying of Lot 49, for which he won the 'Literatura na Świecie award), John Gardner and Robert Nye. He worked as a columnist and anecdote writer for the underground journal 'BruLion'. In 1997 he completed his legal studies at the University of Columbia and worked in Manhattan in the legal practice of Weil, Gotshal & Manges. Since the summer of 2000 he has lived in Warsaw.
His return to Poland after twelve years abroad coincided with the beginning of his novelistic career. He lives just outside Warsaw, that the writer describes as "a zany, postmodern city, where one can, these days, fully experience the 21st century dynamics of intermingling languages, civilizations, and ideas, while remaining rooted in Europe’s difficult history." In fact, his artistic work has always been marked by cross-border but also cross-disciplinary influences. In the U.S. he received his Ph.D. degree in American fiction but also studied for a law school degree, both from Columbia University in New York. In the last three decades, Siemion has pursued a two-edged career of an international lawyer and a novelist, never being able to decide which path to abandon. In the end, he is still doing both things at once, writing novels and, in parallel, working on AI projects for a Warsaw-based publishing house.
In his early years, he used to translate into Polish the works of British, Irish, and American authors, including Thomas Pynchon, Robert Nye, and W.B. Yeats. In 2000, he published his first novel, Niskie Łąki (“Low Meadows”), which was hailed as the literary event of the year, and was subsequently translated into German, Hungarian, and Ukrainian. It was meant as a chronicle of his post-Communist generation, depicting the transition from the Cold War era to the new, chaotic, capitalist order of things. In 2004, his second novel, Finimondo, appeared, to good reviews but less publicity. It was a business thriller and, for a second novel, it had good reviews. In 2015, the book was followed by a personal, book-length biographical essay, The Year of the Snake. A Diary. In the meantime, he periodically published other literary translations (listed below), essays, and reviews.
Siemion published his most recent novel, Bella, ciao, in 2022. A post-apocalyptic riff on modernity’s key philosophical issues, it coincided with Russia’s invasion on Ukraine. Accordingly, some critics read it as a fact-based report from the conflict. At any event, in 2023 Bella, ciao, was shortlisted for the Warsaw Literary Prize, as well as the Central European Literary Prize Angelus. At this time, Siemion is busy outlining a new work of fiction, but in parallel he concern myself with the rapidly changing Polish and English literary idioms. In fact, he enthusiastically embraced the chance to translate Solar Bones into Polish precisely because Mike McCormack’s novel intermingles the 21st century vernacular with strong echoes of grand literary traditions: an exercise in literary sleight-of-hand that is a challenge and a joy to its translators.
DR. JERZY GEORGE KOSSEK
Dr Kossek is a Polish-American Americanist, Associate Professor writer, poet, literature and music critic, theater director, promoter and producer, radio host, Fulbright Visiting Professor at University of California, Riverside, Former Chair and Associate Professor at University of Bielsko-Biala, Poland. Former English and American Literature and Culture Professor at University of Occupational Safety Management. He holds MA in English and American Literature and Culture and a Doctoral Degree in American Literature from the University of Silesia, Poland. A recipient of several international research awards, he lectured in Europe and USA. In Poland under Soviet regime he organized and founded American Club Association in cooperation with American Consulate General in Krakow, Poland. His passion for American core music - Blues - resulted in co-organizing the world's biggest blues festival - Rawa Blues Festival. He also organized or contributed to Poetic Blues Café, Academic Blues Conference, and Route 66 Seminar.
Artistic Performances
Kossek, started his passion for American core music - The Blues, which resulted in many ventures. The most significant of them, co-organization of Rawa Blues Festival in Katowice, Poland. Over the years the Festival grew to the biggest blues fest status in the world under the roof and also one of the oldest. Most of the top blues personalities like Koko Taylor, Junior Wells, Robert Cray, Keb' Mo', James Blood Ulmer & Vernon Reid, Otis Taylor performed at the Flying Saucer venue, a 60.000 spectators concert arena. The Festival is the recipient of the Keeping the Blues Award for the Best International Festival. To stress the role of text/lyrics/poetry/art in blues music and interdisciplinary character of blues culture Kossek founded The Poetic Café - a venue happening yearly alongside the Blues Fest gathering poets, songwriters, artists and painters, students and fans over workshops, seminars, competitions and artistic happening on and off the main stage. The Poetic Café, unlike the Blues Fest, is opened throughout the whole year, inspiring the wide audience all over the world.
https://jerzygeorgekossek.com/
