Polish literary award goes to American Slavicist

Ewa Thompson, a leading American Slavicist and promoter of Polish culture in the United States, has won the 2020 Transatlantyk Prize, which is given out for outstanding achievements in promoting works by Polish writers.

Ewa Thompson.

Photo: Poland's Book Institute/Mikołaj Marczak

Thompson, 83, is a professor emeritus of Slavic studies at Rice University in Houston, Texas. From 1981 to 2018, she edited Sarmatian Review, a periodical that publishes translations from Polish literature and articles on Polish culture.

She is also the author of an English-language book on Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz and has penned numerous studies on Polish-Russian relations.

In addition to Rice University, Thompson has lectured at Princeton and the University of Virginia in the United States, as well as in Canada, South Africa and Germany.

She was born in 1937 in Kaunas, present-day Lithuania, into a Polish family.

Znamy laureatkę tegorocznej nagrody #Transatlantyk! 🏆 Prof. Ewa Thompson to czołowa amerykańska slawistka i promotorka kultury polskiej w #USA 🇺🇸@PLInst_NewYork https://t.co/bHhuSg7zrP

— Instytut Książki (@InstytutKsiazki) September 2, 2020

The Transatlantyk Prize is an annual literary award from Poland’s state-run Book Institute. It was handed out for the first time in 2005.

Past recipients include prominent translators of Polish literature into English, such as Bill Johnston and Antonia Lloyd-Jones.

Due to the COVID-19 pandemic and restrictions on intercontinental flights, this year's award will be presented at a ceremony next year, the Book Institute said.

(gs-mk)

Source: instytutksiazki.pl