The translation was published last year by Archipelago Books under the title: Pan Tadeusz: The Last Foray in Lithuania.
Johnston is one of the most prominent translators of Polish literature into English. He has translated work by the poets Jan Kochanowski, Juliusz Słowacki and Tadeusz Różewicz, the novelists Bolesław Prus and Stefan Żeromski, the avant-garde playwright and prose writer Witold Gombrowicz, as well as books by contemporary Polish authors (Andrzej Stasiuk, Magdalena Tulli, Jerzy Pilch, Wiesław Myśliwski).
Johnston is a professor at Indiana University, Bloomington.
In a review of Johnston’s award-winning translation, Boyd Tonkin wrote in The Spectator: “At last, English readers can grasp why Pan Tadeusz belongs with Byron’s Don Juan and Pushkin’s Eugene Onegin in a glorious farewell trio that marked the swansong of the verse epic in Europe."
Established in 1998, The National Translation Award is given annually in poetry and in prose to translators who have made an outstanding contribution to literature in English.
It is the only prize for a work of literary translation into English to include an evaluation of the source language text.
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