News
On June 13, 2025, during a ceremonial gala at the Manggha Museum of Japanese Art and Technology in Krakow, the laureate of the 21st edition of the Transatlantyk Prize, the most important distinction awarded annually by the Book Institute to ambassadors of Polish literature abroad, was announced. The award was given to Xavier Farré, an outstanding translator of Polish literature into Catalan and Spanish.
Anna Sawicka, an Iberist and translator from Catalan and Spanish, in her laudation presented the laureate’s achievements and noted: “His translational, poetic and prose achievements are truly impressive. (...) Xavier Farré is an excellent ambassador of Polish literature abroad and deserves to join the group of outstanding laureates of the Transatlantyk Prize granted by the Book Institute this year.” Prof. Sawicka also noted that by conducting translation workshops at many Polish universities, Dr. Xavier Farré educates new generations of translators.
Grzegorz Jankowicz, director of the Book Institute, emphasized the laureate’s enormous translation achievements and his contribution to the promotion of Polish literature: “Xavier Farré is a poet and translator who moves between four languages on a daily basis: Catalan, Polish, Spanish and Slovenian. He has an impressive translation output: he has translated Polish poetry and prose, primarily by 20th-century and contemporary writers. He is also a passionate teacher and a tireless ambassador of Polish literature in the entire Spanish-speaking area. The place he comes from is Catalonia. The place where he lives in is Poland. The Transatlantyk Prize goes to a man who builds bridges between languages and cultures.”
This year's laureate was selected by the Prize Committee consisting of: Silvano De Fanti, Hatif Janabi, Grzegorz Jankowicz, Abel Murcia, Tomasz Pindel, Anna Wasilewska, Agata Zano. The prize is worth 10,000 euros, and each laureate also receives a commemorative diploma and a statuette by Łukasz Kieferling.
Transatlantyk Prize is an award from the Book Institute for the most outstanding promoters of Polish literature and culture abroad. Its laureates can be translators, publishers, critics or cultural life animators who have contributed to increasing the presence of Polish literature in their country through their work.
The history of the Transatlantyk Prize dates back to 2005, when it was awarded to Henryk Bereska, a German translator of giants of our literature, during the Congress of Translators of Polish Literature. So far, the Transatlantyk Award has honored such greats as Anders Bodegård (Sweden), Albrecht Lempp (Germany), Ksenia Starosielska (Russia), Biserka Rajčić (Serbia), Pietro Marchesani (Italy), Vlasta Dvořáčková (Czech Republic), Yi Lijun (China), Karol Lesman (Netherlands), Bill Johnston (United States), Laurence Dyèvre (France), Constantin Geambaşu (Romania), Lajos Pálfalvi (Hungary), Antonia Lloyd-Jones (United Kingdom), Hendrik Lindepuu (Estonia), Ewa Thompson (Poland), Tokimasa Sekiguchi (Japan), Silvano De Fanti (Italy), Hatif Janabi (Iraq), Vera Verdiani (Italy) and Abel Murcia (Spain).
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Xavier Farré (born 1971) is a poet and translator of Polish and Slovenian literature into Catalan and Spanish. He has published seven volumes of poetry and a collection of essays, Auditorium in Görlitz, about poetry and its connections with identity, exile and the Holocaust. He has translated books by Czesław Miłosz, Adam Zagajewski, Zbigniew Herbert, Olga Tokarczuk, Wioletta Grzegorzewska, Julia Hartwig, Stanisław Lem, Tomasz Różycki and other authors. He has also translated plays by Krystian Lupa, Krzysztof Warlikowski, Ingmar Villqist and Dorota Masłowska, and has also translated from Slovenian (including Aleš Debeljak, Lojze Kovačič, Tomaž Šalamun). He is the laureate of the Jaume Vidal Acovera for the Catalan translation of a selection of poems by Czesław Miłosz and the winner of the Jordi Domènech Award for the Catalan translation of Zbigniew Herbert's Pan Cogito.
This year’s gala was graced by the performance of the FISZ EMADE TWORZYWO group, one of the most important bands of the last quarter-century on the Polish music scene.