The Interpreter’s Tale from Sarajevo to Trieste: Jim Hicks in conversation with Krzysztof Rowiński

An 'in conversation' event featuring Prof Jim Hicks (University of Massachusetts Amherst) in conversation with Dr Krzysztof Rowiński (TCD) organised by the School of Languages, Literatures and Cultural Studies. The heightened visibility of translators and interpreters, with Arrival (2016) or the 2021 controversy over translators of Amanda Gorman's presidential inauguration poem as prime examples, is a relatively new phenomenon. Just a few decades ago, things did seem rather different. In war interpreting, where the stakes are literally life and death, little if any work had been done. No one seemed to be asking many questions at all, much less the right ones. Jim Hicks will discuss his work on a series of interviews with interpreters who had worked during and after the 1992-95 war in Bosnia and a recent Italian novel that features an encounter in Trieste between two generations of refugees. Comparing these two projects will serve to suggest ways in which fiction may be used in the service of truth, and also that the truths we learn from fiction may not be accessible by any other means. Jim Hicks is Senior Lecturer in Comparative Literature and Executive Editor of The Massachusetts Review. His research and teaching interests include cultural studies, representations of war, comparative studies in American literature, as well as modernist narrative and literary theory. He has studied in France, lectured in Italy, and taught in Bosnia-Herzegovina as a Fulbright Professor of English. He has also directed a three-year Educational Partnership Program with the University of Sarajevo as well as the American Studies Diploma Program at Smith College—a small, one-year graduate program for international students. His translations include short pieces by Italo Calvino, Ananda Devi, Juan José Saer, Izet Sarajlić, and longer works by Erri De Luca and Federica Marzi. His Lessons from Sarajevo: A War Stories Primer was published by the University of Massachusetts Press in 2013.

Please indicate if you have any access requirements, such as ISL/English interpreting, so that we can facilitate you in attending this event. Contact: k.rowinski@tcd.ie