Marcin Jan Jacoby

Director for International Relations at the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities

Nationality: Poland

Language: Polish, French, English, Chinese

Profile

Between 2002-2008, he worked at the National Museum in Warsaw (researcher and caretaker of the Chinese Art Collection), and between 2008-2017 at the Adam Mickiewicz Institute (organizer of Polish cultural events in Asia on behalf of the Ministry of Culture and National Heritage of Poland, Head of the Asian Program at the Institute). In his earlier professional career, he worked as professional translator and interpreter from English and Chinese. He still served as the official examiner for sworn translators at the Ministry of Justice of Poland. As present, he works as Director for International Relations at the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities, also teaching at the Centre for East Asian Civilizations of the University.

Q&A

Q1: Could you please briefly introduce the market situation of the publishing industry in your country?

The publishing market is fairly stable; it is characterized by a large number of very small publishing houses. Books are increasingly being bought through internet, and the e-book market is steadily growing, even though traditional paper books are still far more popular.

Q2: Have you ever read any works written by Chinese authors?

I have read most important Chinese literature works from The Book of Songs (Shijing) to 20th Century novels and short stories. I am not very well versed, however, in modern literature after 1990.

Q3: What kinds of Chinese literature (genres) do you prefer to introduce to your country? Have you ever recommended any before?

I would like to make more people in Poland aware of the rich tradition of ancient Chinese literature. Through my translations and publications I popularize both pre-Qin literary and philosophical tradition, and later works, such as Tang poetry.

Q4: Which Chinese literature books do you think could be bestsellers around the world? Or could have a corner in the global market?

Of course Laozi and Art of War (Sun Zi Bing Fa) are among the most popular, but there is a huge potential in contemporary literature, for example works such as Liu Qixin’s The Three Body Problem are gaining a lot of attention recently.

Q5: Could you please briefly talk about the actual dilemmas that occur during the translating and publishing processes of Chinese literature?

Translating - standard language problems faced by all translators of literature.

Publishing - lack of funding and any other forms of support from China, difficulties in persuading Polish publishers to invest their funds in such projects.