Two Typed Letters Signed about the possible Polish translation of his work

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Unbound. Two Typed Letters Signed ("Thomas Pynchon" and "Tom Pynchon"). Undated. The first sent care of Melanie Jackson Agency, the second with no cover address but mentioning to contact him through Jackson. Both letters to Michael Stephens at the Writing Program at Columbia University, concerning a Polish translator named Tomasz Mirkowicz. Pynchon enlists the help of Stephens in contacting Mirkowicz, who had himself contacted Pynchon and apparently was being considered to translate Pynchon's work. Undated but from context probably either late 1960s or early 1970s: "...it occurred to me that if he had a hassle getting a letter out, it might be that any letter coming in might never get to him and even somehow cause him trouble." Pynchon wants to know in the first letter: "Is he a good translator, and where's he at politically, and so forth... I'm really just kind of stymied here by total ignorance."

In the second letter Pynchon thanks his correspondent for his quick response and apologizes for his slow one: "With me, this is just about top speed." He indicates that he isn't up on the situation in Poland, mentioning that he is a year away from the television: "... so I don't have those jiveass visuals to go on." He goes on at length about the sad state of American publishing ("...proving more & more dangerous to my mental health") and suggests that if he could find a budget time-machine, he might go back twenty years and "...look around for another hustle."

Mirkowicz was a fiction writer and critic who translated the works of many authors into Polish including Ken Kesey, George Orwell, Jerzy Kosinski, Stephen King, Harry Matthews, William Gaddis, Robert Coover, Alan Sillitoe, Charles Bukowski, and many others, but as near as we can tell, he did not translate Pynchon.

Two letters with good content from the reclusive author.


Item #399032

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Item #399032 Two Typed Letters Signed about the possible Polish translation of his work. Thomas PYNCHON.
Two Typed Letters Signed about the possible Polish translation of his work
Two Typed Letters Signed about the possible Polish translation of his work