Johnston, Bill mss., 2001-2010

Biographical Note

Bill Johnston, 1960- , is a professor in the Department of Comparative Literature at Indiana University, Bloomington. He does extensive work in translations of Polish literary works in a wide range of periods and genres. Trained in Applied Linguistics at the University of Oxford and the University of Hawai'i, Bill Johnston holds a joint appointment in Comparative Literature and Second Language Studies at Indiana University. He has translated over twenty-five books from the Polish, including both poetry and prose, covering a wide range of periods and styles. His best-known translations include Witold Gombrowicz's Bacacay (Archipelago Books, 2004), Magdalena Tulli's Dreams and Stones (Archipelago Books, 2004), for which he received the 2005 AATSEEL Translation Award, and Andrzej Stasiuk's Fado (Dalkey Archive, 2009). His 2007 translation of Tadeusz Różewicz's New Poems (Archipelago Books) won the inaugural Found in Translation Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. Other published translations include Wiesław Myśliwski's works Stone upon Stone (Archipelago Books, 2010) and A Treatise on Shelling Beans (Archipelago Books, 2013), as well as Twelve Stations by Tomasz Różycki (Zephyr Press, 2015). Johnston has also held translation fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.