Call it Codex of the Insane. Kodeks Pomylonych in Polish. An allegory for contemporary times – employing the language of parable, the deft syntax of a spinning wheel – to weave playful, profound fantasies grounded in the world, but as we have never seen it before. Here, beings, elements, body and emotions are seen through the eyes of the Insane. The allegorical language is fluid, indeterminate, allowing you to make of it what you will, for all madness is essential to art, and the myths of life, of death, of creation and creativity, can only be glimpsed by the sidelined seer, the disturbed. Having successfully brought Bronka Nowicka’s splendid creations to the English language thanks to a chapbook published by Toad Press (2021), Katarzyna Szuster-Tardi’s full translation is now forthcoming with Tupelo Press.
Bronka Nowicka is a Polish theatre and TV director, screenwriter, poet, and interdisciplinary artist. She is a graduate of the National Film School in Łódź, Poland, and the Cracow Academy of Fine Arts. Her literary debut, Nakarmić kamień (To Feed the Stone) was awarded the 2016 Nike Literary Award and the Złoty Środek Poezji (Golden Mean of Poetry) award, and has been translated into seven languages. Her second book, Kodeks Pomylonych (Codex of the Insane) was published in 2020, and To Feed the Stone was published in a bilingual edition by Dalkey Archive Press in 2021. Codex of the Insane (translated from the Polish by Katarzyna Szuster-Tardi) is forthcoming from Tupelo Press.
Katarzyna Szuster-Tardi is a translator. Recent book translations include Autobiografia śmierci (with Ewa and Lynn Suh) by Kim Hyesoon (Biuro Literackie, 2024), which was a finalist for the Ossolineum Prize; Histeria (with Ewa and Lynn Suh) by Kim Yideum (Biuro Literackie, 2022); Polish Literature and Genocide by Arkadiusz Morawiec (Routledge, 2022); To Feed the Stone by Bronka Nowicka (Dalkey Archive Press, 2021); and the chapbook Codex of the Insane: Body and Related Matters by Bronka Nowicka (Toad Press/Veliz Books, 2021). She earned her M.A. in English studies from the University of Łódź, Poland. Recent translations have appeared in Conjunctions, Denver Quarterly, Washington Square Review, Michigan Quarterly Review, Tripwire, and LIT. She is also one of the translators of Viscera: Eight Voices from Poland (Litmus Press, 2024). Codex of the Insane by Bronka Nowicka (translated from the Polish) is forthcoming from Tupelo Press.
Abigail Ardelle Zammit is a Maltese writer, editor and educator whose poetry and reviews have appeared in international journals and anthologies including Black Iris, Matter, Tupelo Quarterly, Boulevard, Gutter, Modern Poetry in Translation, Mslexia, Poetry International, The SHOp, Iota, Aesthetica, Ink, Sweat and Tears, High Window, O:JA&L, The Ekphrastic Review, Smokestack Lightning (Smokestack, 2021) and The Montreal Poetry Prize Anthology 2022 (Véhicule Press, 2023). Abigail’s poetry collections are Leaves Borrowed from Human Flesh (Etruscan Press, Wilkes University, 2025), Portrait of a Woman with Sea Urchin (London: SPM, 2015) and Voices from the Land of Trees (UK: Smokestack, 2007). She has co-authored two bilingual pamphlets (Half Spine, Half Wild Flower – Nofsi Spina, Nofsi Fjur Selvaġġ) and written A Seamus Heaney guidebook for high-school students. Her most recent manuscripts have been shortlisted for the Cinnamon Press Literature Award 2022, the Tupelo Press open reading period 2024, the 2023 Sunken Garden Poetry Chapbook Prize and the 2024 Snowbound Chapbook Prize.