6. Puchata przepustka do sławy. Pochwała Ireny Tuwim

Irena Tuwim is one of the very few translators in Poland who succeed to become recognizable by the large audience. What is even more remarkable, she achieved this success as a translator of children’s literature. Although she is known above all for the Polish version of A.A. Milne’s Winnie-the-Pooh books, which are generally considered her greatest accomplishment, in fact she translated a quantity of children’s books, among them many classics, such a Mary Poppins saga, Edith Nesbit’s books or H. Beecher Stowe Uncle Tom’s Cabin. The paper firstly gives a brief account of Tuwim’s apparently transparent, yet surprisingly elusive biographical vicissitude, then moves to the examination of her translation strategies. It is not easy to decide whether Tuwim’s versions of foreign books may be defined as free translations or rather adaptations, but a detailed analysis of her method clearly shows that her choices were based on a very sharp study of the original text. Although not free of some occasional minor errors, her translations are a very fine example of the stylistic mastery, which not only results in works of high artistic quality, but is also able to enrich significantly the target language as well.