Amerykański tłumacz wobec dwóch obcości. Double allegiance?

The article surveys how the proportions and dialectics of what is Polish (i.e. native) and what is German (i.e. alien) in Stefan Chwin’s novel Hanemann change in Philip Boehm’s translation into English titled Death in Danzig. While the strategy is by no means a domesticating one, the relation of the original culture and the third culture undoubtedly becomes reconfigured: e.g. certain Polish place names are replaced with German ones and German ones with English ones. It is taken into consideration that Boehm also translates from German (even more actively than from Polish) and the analysis is structured by issues tackled in his “Note on the Translation”. In it, Boehm declares that he sought to re-create at least partly the effect that German linguistic and cultural items generate in the fabric of Chwin’s novel. He elucidates his strategy towards the dual Polish-German toponymy and manifests concern for the hidden layers of meaning and associations, illegible for a foreign reader. He also draws attention to the bilingual index of places. The approach declared in or implied by the paratext is confronted with the translational solutions in the text of the novel.