Jane Irene Zielonko (1922–1982)"The captive mind / Czesław Miłosz; translated from the Polish by Jane Zielonko"
National Library Board, Singapore. was the Polish-American translator of ''

The Captive Mind ''The Captive Mind'' ( Polish: ''Zniewolony umysł'') is a 1953 work of nonfiction by Polish writer, poet, academic and Nobel laureate Czesław Miłosz. It was first published in English in a translation by Jane Zielonko in 1953. Overview ''T ...

'' (1953) by

Czesław Miłosz Czesław Miłosz (, also , ; 30 June 1911 – 14 August 2004) was a Polish-American poet, prose writer, translator, and diplomat. Regarded as one of the great poets of the 20th century, he won the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature. In its citation, ...

, winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature.Flaherty, E. P. (6 September 2018)
"Francis M.S. Peel Obituary"
American International Club of Geneva. First published in Polish as ''Zniewolony umysł'', the book examines the collaboration of intellectuals in the Eastern Bloc under Stalinism.

Early life and education

Born to Polish immigrants, and resident in Philadelphia, Zielonko graduated in 1944 with an A.B. in English from the

University of Pennsylvania The University of Pennsylvania (also known as Penn or UPenn) is a private research university in Philadelphia. It is the fourth-oldest institution of higher education in the United States and is ranked among the highest-regarded universitie ...

and an A.M. in 1945 from

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

. Her master's thesis was titled "Some American Variants of Child Ballads".

Work with Miłosz

After Columbia, Zielonko taught English language and literature at Smith College.
Smith College Bulletin
'. 1946–1947. p. 96. She met Czesław Miłosz while he was working as a cultural attaché in the embassy of the communist

Polish People's Republic The Polish People's Republic ( pl, Polska Rzeczpospolita Ludowa, PRL) was a country in Central Europe that existed from 1947 to 1989 as the predecessor of the modern Republic of Poland. With a population of approximately 37.9 million ne ...

in Washington, DC. Apparently they had a brief affair, which ended when Zielonko moved to Paris to study at the Sorbonne on a Fulbright scholarship. Miłosz was married; he was living in Washington with his wife, and his second child was born in 1951.Roe, Nicholas (9 November 2001)
"A century's witness"
''The Guardian''. In December 1950, during a visit to Poland, Miłosz's passport was confiscated by the Polish government because of suspicions about his lack of ideological purity. In early 1951 the government nevertheless allowed him to visit Paris (apparently the foreign minister's wife was one of his supporters), where he

defected In politics, a defector is a person who gives up allegiance to one state in exchange for allegiance to another, changing sides in a way which is considered illegitimate by the first state. More broadly, defection involves abandoning a person, ca ...

. His family remained in the United States, but the American government denied him a visa because of fears about communist influence. At the same time, intellectuals in Paris were supportive of communism, which increased his sense of isolation. Zielonko, he wrote later, was one of the few people he could speak to about politics and literature who understood him. Zielonko began translating ''The Captive Mind'' in the winter of 1951 and moved back to New York in early 1952. The two formed a close working relationship, although Miłosz said he "tormented" her during the translation: "friendship is one thing but when it comes to precision, I was implacable which, in reality, meant that I tormented her." According to scholar Bartłomiej Biegajło, Zielonko's translation "frequently violated" the source text, with both omissions and additions, to produce a smoothly written English edition. Biegajło writes that this was probably done with Miłosz's encouragement. Miłosz described his work with Zielonko in his book ''Rok myśliwego'' (1989), which became one of the few sources of information about her. In that book Miłosz wrote that Zielonko had been suffering from a terminal illness at the time and saw the translation as a "test"; if she were able to complete it, it would mean she had beaten the disease.

Later life

By 1968 Zielonko had married an American attorney, Frank Peel (1927–2018). In 2004 Peel wrote a letter to the ''Wall Street Journal'' pointing out that an article the newspaper had published about ''The Captive Mind'' had failed to mention Zielonko. In that letter, he noted that she had worked as an adviser to

Radio Free Europe Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty (RFE/RL) is a United States government funded organization that broadcasts and reports news, information, and analysis to countries in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, Caucasus, and the Middle East where it says tha ...

and that she had accompanied Miłosz to Stockholm when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1980. She died two years later.

Translations

*(1953). Miłosz, Czesław. ''The Captive Mind''. Trans. Jane Zielonko. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. *(1968). Kołakowski, Leszek (1968). ''Political Thinking Beyond Politics: Toward a Marxist Humanism. Essays on the Left Today''. Trans. Jane Zielonko Peel. New York: Grove Press. *(1969). Kołakowski, Leszek (1969). ''Marxism and Beyond: On Historical Understanding and Individual Responsibility''. Trans. Jane Zielonko Peel. London: Pall Mall Press.

Early life and education

Work with Miłosz

Later life

Translations

References

Further reading