Bill Johnston and Will Chancellor discuss Needle’s Eye

Join us at the Center for Brooklyn History on November 20th, 7pm, for an evening with translator Bill Johnston and Will Chancellor, novelist and critic, as they discuss Johnston’s translation of Needle’s Eye, the latest novel by renowned Polish author Wiesław Myśliwski. A lyrical, nonlinear meditation on memory, time, and history, Needle’s Eye blends autobiography and fiction to reflect on a half-century of Polish life.

This event is co-sponsored by the Polish Cultural Institute and The Brooklyn Rail.

Bill Johnston received the 2019 National Translation Award in Poetry for his rendering of Adam Mickiewicz’s epic narrative poem in rhyming couplets Pan Tadeusz (Archipelago Books, 2018). He translates from Polish and French; his recent translations have included work by Julia Fiedorczuk, Wiesław Myśliwski, Charles Ferdinand Ramuz, and Jeanne Benameur. His other honors include the PEN Translation Prize, the Best Translated Book Award for Fiction, and a Guggenheim Fellowship. He teaches literary translation at Indiana University.

Author of the novel A Brave Man Seven Storeys Tall (Harper Perennial, 2014), Will Chancellor edits fiction at the Brooklyn Rail. His writing has appeared in Bookforum, Lit Hub, The New York Times Magazine, Interview, Electric Literature, The White Review, and The New York Times. He recently wrote on the Brazilian painter Lucas Arruda for David Zwirner books (Lucas Arruda: Deserto-Modelo).