Land is a major theme in the novel such that the fields themselves are elevated to an almost sacred level, with the apogee of success and happiness in the eyes of the novel’s characters being to own at least a small piece of the farmland. When Jagna finds herself caught between the conflicting desires of the village’s richest farmer, his eldest son and other leading men of the community, her resistance puts her on a tragic collision course with the community around her. An established translator of Polish literature, Anna Zaranko was born in the UK to Polish parents. The 2023 Found in Translation Award marks her second award of this kind. In 2020 she received the award for her translation of The Memoir of an Anti-hero by Kornel Filipowicz.

A new English translation, by Anna Zaranko, was published in November 2022. [1] Film and television adaptations [ edit ]

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Published by Penguin Classics in 2022, Zaranko's translation was notable at the time for being the first new English translation of Reymont's classic work to be published in almost a century (the first was published in 1924/25). From the outset, it received high praise from from fellow translators and a prestigious UK literature journal.

a b Michalak, Ada (30 June 2023). "Jest pierwszy zwiastun filmu "Chłopi". Tworzą go twórcy "Twojego Vincenta" ". Rzeczpospolita (in Polish) . Retrieved 1 August 2023. Each of the four parts represents a season in the life of the peasants – Autumn (published in 1904), Winter (published in 1904), Spring (published in 1906), and Summer (published in 1909). This division underlines the relationship of human life with nature. The second context is that of the Young Poland literary and artistic movement of which Reymont was a part. As both Welchman in his foreword and Zaranko in her translator’s note point out, this is a very ‘painterly’ text. It is understandable why Welchman would choose to use Young Poland paintings as the inspiration for his animations. The approach is more impressionistic, however, than realistic. On one level, the portrayal of nature, for example, feels visceral and immediate, yet it is often inaccurate in scientific detail. But this does not detract from the overall effect. The same could be said of the language, the so-called ‘peasant-speak’, which is an impressionistic language constructed by the author, not a realistic reflection of any dialect spoken in rural Poland. The translator has therefore made the right decision to treat it with a light touch, using colourful informal speech without drawing on any British dialect, although occasionally, as she says, ‘its cadences are decidedly northern’. Realism - a style in art or literature that shows things and people as they are in real life (detailed descriptions of nature, traditions, everyday life and heroes).Reymont harboured political leanings towards the clandestine and nationalistic National Democratic Party that was active around the time he wrote his work. The main storyline revolves around the wedding between the village’s ageing and wealthiest farmer Maciej Boryna and the naive teenage beauty Jagna.

Władysław Stanisław Reymont ( Polish: [vwaˈdɨswaf ˈɾɛjmɔnt], born Rejment; 7 May 1867 – 5 December 1925) was a Polish novelist and the laureate of the 1924 Nobel Prize in Literature. [1] His best-known work is the award-winning four-volume novel Chłopi ( The Peasants). Władysław Reymont was popular in communist Poland due to his style of writing and the symbolism he used, including socialist concepts, romantic portrayal of the agrarian countryside and toned criticism of capitalism, all present in literary realism. His work is widely attributed to the Young Poland movement, which featured decadence and literary impressionism.To do that, the filmmakers turned to a wide repertoire of realist and pre-Impressionist paintings, drawing from the work of artists from the Young Poland movement, a modernist period roughly spanning the years from 1890-1918. They were equally inspired by the evocative language of the novel itself, which “reads like a painting” in its vivid, descriptive passages, according to Hugh. We’re combining, live, CGI and 2D animation with oil painting animation. We use all of those together, to varying degrees, depending on what’s in the scene,” he added of a drama that is at times comic, tragic or nostalgic for ancestral times. I read that Reymont undertook this project because he wasn't satisfied with Emile Zola's study of peasant life reflected in the Rougon-Macquart novel, Earth. That intrigued me as an admirer of some of Zola's other novels. I also read that some critics feel The Peasants needs a new translation into English: the most recent dates from 1924. I distinctly noted some pronounced similarity to Zola's style, but Reymont's prose is much more poetic when describing his characters' environment, especially the weather. The marriage subsequently affects life within Lipce and its inhabitants in both direct and indirect ways and spurs discord, jealously and intrigue.