Pseudotranslations in Poland after 1945

This chapter examines pseudotranslations (fictitious translations) published in Poland after 1945, their authorship and outlets, as well as reasons for their publication. The works discussed had no corresponding source texts in other languages, were published under a foreign, usually English-sounding pseudonym, and employed other techniques of foreignisation: textual (language stylisation and setting the plot outside Poland, usually in the West) and peritextual (illustrations on the cover, editorial notes, and postfaces). The genres concerned are crime stories after 1956, action fiction/thrillers since the 1980s, and fantasy and science fiction since 1989. Pseudotranslations included novels published in book form or serialised in periodicals and scripts for the series of TV plays Kobra. The main reasons behind the phenomenon of these pseudotranslations were of sociocultural, economic, normative, or ludic nature, including the prestige of English-language literature, shortage of financial means in Socialist Poland to purchase publishing rights for popular literature, Socialist concepts of the role of literature, and the resulting official disdain for popular fiction coupled with the need for entertainment on the part of the reading public. From the beginning of the 21st century, when the market became saturated with Western literature and Polish authors had accumulated sufficient cultural capital to publish under their original names, pseudotranslations apparently disappeared.