KANIA Ireneusz

Born on 19 September 1940 in Wieluń; son of the craftsman Stefan Kania and Wanda, née Muszalska. He attended the Tadeusz Kościuszko Grammar School No. 1 in Wieluń from 1954 to 1959. After completing advanced secondary education, he studied Romance philology at the Jagiellonian University (UJ) in Krakow from 1959 to 1964. During this period he also learned Hebrew, Chinese and Sanskrit. He was also a competitive weightlifter. He took part in a language course in Sinaia in Romania in 1963. Between 1964 and 1968, he worked as a proofreader, then as a technical editor and production inspector at the Krakow office of Polish Scientific Publishers PWN. In 1968, he took up a post at the Central Refrigeration Institute (Centralny Ośrodek Chłodnictwa) in Krakow, where he worked initially as an archivist before becoming head of the autonomous international collaboration section. He further developed his interests in the Orient, particular Tibet and Buddhism. He made his debut in 1972 with a review of the Polish translation of W. Forman and B. Rinchen's work Lamajskie maski taneczne (Lamas' Dance Masks) in the journal "Przegląd Orientalistyczny" (no. 1), while his debut translation appeared in 1974 in the same journal (no. 2), under the title Wyjątki z tybetańskiej epopei o Geserze w jej wersji z Amdo (Excerpts of the Amdo version of the Tibetan Epic of King Gesar). He published numerous translations in subsequent years, initially from Portguese and then later from other languages including English, German, French, Russian, Romanian, Italian, Swedish and Sanskrit. From 1975 he worked at the publishing house Wydawnictwo Literackie, deputizing as editor and then serving as deputy director of the Translation Section, where he was responsible for Iberian and Latin American literature. He spent a month in Cuba in 1978, supporting colleagues at the Havana-based publishing house Editorial Arte y Literatura, who were preparing an anthology of Polish poetry. He was a member of the Polish Writers' Union (Związek Literatów Polskich, ZLP) from 1980 until its dissolution in 1983. He left Wydawnictwo Literackie in 1981 and focused on his own writing, particularly translations. He joined the Polish Translators' Association (Stowarzyszenie Tłumaczy Polskich, STP) in 1983. Between 1983 and 1988, he offered private tuition in classical Tibetan. His translations, articles and reviews appeared in periodicals including "Znak", "Literatura na Świecie" and "Dekada Literacka". He was involved in literary and research symposia, including a Tibetan studies symposium in Hungary in 1976, a musicology conference in Podkowa Leśna, Poland, in 1993, and a literary symposium in Romania in 2003. He wrote the introductions and afterwords to books that he translated. He joined the Association of Polish Writers (Stowarzyszenie Pisarzy Polskich, SPP) in 1989 and was a member of the Board of the Krakow Branch and the Executive Board. In the 1990s he taught courses on literary translation on the Postgraduate Programme in Literary and Artistic Studies at UJ. He acted as a regular internal reviewer and consultant for the publishing houses including Wydawnictwo Literackie, Austeria, Homini and Instytutu Książki in Krakow. He received many awards for his translations, including STP's award in 1992, the "Literatura na Świecie" prize in 1993 and 1998, the Award of the Krakow Branch of the Polish Cultural Foundation (Nagroda Krakowskiej Filii Fundacji Kultury Polskiej) in 1995, and the Polish PEN Club Prize in 1996. After retiring in 2005 he remained active as a writer. He won the City of Krakow Prize in 2017. He received the Officer's Cross of the Meritul Cultural Order of the Republic of Romania in 2004 and received the fifteenth-anniversary honour of the Centre for Jewish Culture in Krakow in 2010. He married the editor Maria Pawica in 1966. He lives in Krakow.