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

Recorded June 27, 2023. 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. Learn more at:
https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/