Transatlantic for Pietro Marchesani

The winner of the Transatlantic Award in 2010 was named Pietro Marchesani, a translator of Polish literature into Italian. The award commission made up of Anders Bodegård, Jerzy Jarniewicz, Albrecht Lempp, Jarosław Mikołajewski, Xenia Starosielska and Grzegorz Gauden (chair) selected him from among 30 candidates. The award of 10,000 euro honors those who have striven to popularize Polish literature in the world.

Pietro Marchesani  has translated many works of Polish literature, including those by Gombrowicz, Herbert, Konwicki, Lec, Miłosz, Mrożek, Przybyszewski, Szczypiorski, Szymborska and Witkacy.

He has also worked to promote Polish literature in his country. Since 2001 he has been director of the “Taccuino” (Notebook) series he founded at Libri Scheiwiller Publishers, devoted to Polish culture. They have published books by Kott, Szymborska and Różewicz. Through Marchesani’s efforts the same house has published translations of Kantor’s “The Dead Class,” the poetry of Różewicz, and the complete poems of Szymborska.

Pietro Marchesani has organized and participated in many undertakings devoted to Polish literary culture in Italy, including a conference and exhibition devoted to Schulz in the year 2000 in Trieste and Genoa, and the “I Polacchi” retrospective at the Tosse Theater in Genoa (2000-2001), with a presentation of plays by Witkiewicz, Mrożek and Rożewicz.

He has written numerous works on Polish literature (including works by Krasiński, Kochanowski, Witkacy and Gombrowicz) and its affiliations with Italian literature. The most important Italian newspapers (“La Stampa,” “La Repubblica”) have featured his articles about Polish writers.

From 1968-1971 Marchesani was affiliated with the Jagiellonian University. In the year 2000 he received an honorary doctorate from the institution.

Since 1991 he has been a professor at the Philology Department of the University in Genoa.

For his work in translation and promotion he has received numerous Polish and Italian awards, including the “Outstanding Merit to Polish Culture" Badge (1979), the Grinzane-Cavour Award (1992), the National Award for translation from the President of Italy (1995), the International Mondello Award (1998), the Badge for Outstanding Merit to Polish culture awarded by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (2000) and the Polish PEN Club Award for translation (2002).

The Transatlantic Award Ceremony took place on Friday June 18th at the Manggha Center for Japanese Art and Technology in Krakow.

The winners of the award to date have been Henryk Bereska (2005), Anders Bodegård (2006), Albrecht Lempp (2007), Xenia Starosielska (2008) and Biserka Rajčić (2009).