Piotr Kamiński

Piotr Kamiński (born 1949) is a translator, music journalist and opera expert. To date he has published translations of six Shakespeare plays: Ryszard II (2009), Makbet (2011), Wieczór Trzech Króli (Twelfth Night, 2012), Burza (The Tempest, 2012), Opowieść zimowa (The Winter’s Tale, 2014) and Kupiec wenecki (The Merchant of Venice, 2015). Four further translations have been staged: Hamlet, Miarka za miarkę (Measure for Measure), Król Lear (King Lear) and Henryk V.

He studied French language and literature at the University of Warsaw. From 1968 he worked with Polish Radio. After the military coup and declaration of martial law in 1981 he settled in Paris where he continued his work in radio as a journalist for Radio France Internationale. He is the author of numerous publications about classical music and opera. His reference book 1001 Opéras was published in 2003; it appeared in Polish translation in 2008, winning the Wojciech Bogusławski award for the year’s best book about the theatre.

He translated Samuel Beckett, novels by Raymond Chandler and Jean Genet. He also translated the poetry of Wisława Szymborska into French. In 1997 he was awarded the French Ordre des Arts et des Lettres. In 2013 he received the Society of Authors (ZAiKS) prize for his Shakespeare translations. In 2020 he received the Officer’s Cross of the Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.

Kamiński’s translations are distinguished by their rich and confident use of language and by their strict attention to form, which includes maintaining the same number of lines as the original text. This approach stems from a conviction that the tension and the dynamics of the plays is partly produced by the prosody, making rhythm and sound just as important as the meaning of the lines.

The translations are published in a critical edition, with apparatus explaining the relationship of the work to the principles of translation. Some of the texts were produced at the request of directors and then were staged before they appeared in print.

Kamiński’s first translation was published by Warsaw University Press. His next four plays came out with WAB. In 2021 the series reverted to Warsaw University Press, which reissued all the earlier plays with expanded critical apparatus.

Eleven of Kamiński’s translations have been staged so far (including his first radio play, Antoniusz i Kleopatra) and there have been multiple productions of some of them (Wieczór Trzech Króli, Burza, Miarka za miarkę). His translations reached their widest audience in Andrzej Seweryn’s monodramas Imagine … (Wyobraźcie sobie…) and Szekspir Forever! Reviewers typically draw attention to the music and the clarity of Kamiński’s translations.