Every year, Estonia’s largest daily Postimees awards a highly prestigious Kultuurivedur (Locomotive of Culture) award to the most influential person or cultural institution. This year, the laurel goes to Hendrik Lindepuu as ambassador for Polish literature.
Hendrik Lindepuu is the most important contemporary translator of Polish literature into Estonian, a true one-man-institution. In 2002, he founded his own one-man publishing house so as to be able to publish translations from Polish literature. So far, more than 50 titles have been published by Hendrik Lindepuu Kirjastus publishing house.
In recent years, with the support of the Book Institute, his translations of Piękni dwudziestoletni (‘Pretty Twenty-Year Olds’) by Marek Hłasko, Jak kochać dziecko, Prawo dziecka do szacunku (‘How to Love a Child’, ‘The Child’s Right to Respect’) by Janusz Korczak, Bukareszt. Krew i kurz (‘Bucharest. Dust and Blood’) by Małgorzata Rejmer, Rok myśliwego (“A Year of the Hunter”) by Czesław Miłosz, Sanatorium pod klepsydrą (“The Hourglass Sanatorium”) by Bruno Schulz, Inny świat (“A World Apart”) by Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, as well as a selection of texts by Sławomir Mrożek and Leszek Kołakowski were published. The translations of Polish literature into Estonian published by Lindepuu are reviewed in all major Estonian media.
Thursday’s Postimees daily features an interview with the winner:
https://kultuur.postimees.ee/7434183/hendrik-lindepuu-poola-kirjanduse-suursaadik-eestis
In 2019, Hendrik Lindepuu was honoured by the Book Institute with the Transatlantyk Award for outstanding ambassador of Polish literature abroad.
