My slightly confusing story
Hiking In My Head, first published in
Daily Science Fiction, was translated into Polish and published in
Szortal in 2014. I popped over to Warsaw and met up with editor Dawid Wiktorski to find out about Szortal and Polish SF in general. Or maybe we corresponded by email.
Q. Is there a long history of science fiction in Poland?
A. When we compare Polish SF to, for example, American,
we can see they started their expansion concurrently - in 1960s. Those were the
times when Stanisław Lem wrote his most remarkable texts (“Solaris” and “Fables
for robots”) and Janusz Zajdel started his writing career (for example “Limes
inferior”). The Communist Period, however, turned out to be the golden age to
Polish speculative fiction - our market was mainly closed to American texts, so
- naturally - Polish ones were mostly favored. Not without significance was the
previous political system - what could be better than criticizing it by means
of fictional analogies and references?
Unfortunatelly, Polish SF lost its importance and
monopoly after the opening of borders in 1990s. We were flooded by a wave of
foreign texts’ translations and Polish writers gradually started being
forgotten (in the good days their most influential works were reprinted over a
dozen, sometimes even several dozens times!). Naturally, it’s not the end of
the history of SF in Poland
but this period could be marked as the decrease of its role and popularity -
those were gained mostly by fantasy that became really popular in my country.
Q. Are there any themes or styles that define Polish
science fiction currently?
A. Nowadays the SF market in Poland is so niche that it’s hard
to talk about any styles or subjects that can define it. Recently there could
be observed a rise of number of space opera and post-apo publications but it’s
not a rule. Unfortunately I cannot foresee that fantasy would stop being the
dominant genre in my country, where the market is really small, especially in
comparison to the Anglo-Saxon one.
Q. How did Szortal get started?
A. The whole idea came from Krzysztof “Baranek” Baranowski
(but later Aleksander Kusz was the organisator) and it was refined on a forum
of a non-existing magazine. In Poland Szortal was a unique idea, before no one
was interested in “shorts” (really short pieces of literature), the most
emphasis was put on stories.
For a long time Szortal was dedicated to Polish
writers only but about two years ago there was a section for foreign prose
introduced. It empowered the whole website - not only with really interesting
texts, but also promising contacts.
Q. What kind of stories do you like to publish?
A. A text has to have SOMETHING that makes you remember
several thousand of signs. I don’t care about the genre or the main motif. It’s
crucial for me to remember the story and that it would somehow make me wonder
about it.
Q. What are the challenges of translating stories from
English?
A. English really differs from Polish. On one hand the
Polish language is richer, but on the other in English there are some
collocations and words that don’t correspond with my language. Translating a
text with a "word by word" method in case of fiction is totally
impossible and the translation will always have something invented by the
translator. It makes the whole process of translation unique, makes us wonder
about the sound of every word, whether to translate it directly or search some
other synonyms. It disables the automatisation of the whole translating process
and makes every translation a challenge.
Q. What plans do you have for this year?
A. It’s the most difficult question, I guess ;) It’s hard
to say what would happen this year - I certainly have plans, especially when it
comes to Szortal and other speculative fiction issues, but those are too
dynamically modified and postponed for non-specified future. In other words -
nothing specific. But I have maaany ideas!
