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Frank Garrett holds a PhD in philosophy and literary theory. He trained as a translator at the Center for Translation Studies at the University of Texas at Dallas and at Philipps-Universität Marburg after earning advanced certification in Polish from the Catholic University of Lublin. In 2000 he was a FLAS fellow at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv, and in 2001 he was a Fulbright scholar in Warsaw.
He translates literary fiction (from Polish), nonfiction (mostly from Polish and Spanish), and poetry (mostly from Polish, French, and German). Some of the writers he has translated include Paul Celan, Józef Czechowicz, Igor Guberman, Rafał Hetman, Edmond Jabès, Ryszard Kapuściński, Mirosław Nahacz, Robert Rient, Rainer Maria Rilke, Bruno Schulz, Wisława Szymborska, Wojciech Tochman, and Xavier Villaurrutia.
Sublunary Editions published his two most recent books: The Story of the Paper Crown by Józef Czechowicz in 2023 (longlisted for the 2024 PEN America Translation Prize), and Undula by Bruno Schulz in 2020. Outpost19 published his translation of Robert Rient’s memoir Witness in 2016.
In 2024 he was a Short-Term Research Fellow at The New York Public Library, and in 2025 he was a resident at the Polish Book Institute’s Translators’ Collegium in Krakow.
Selected Online Translations
October 6, 2020
I remember that gray, leaden February dawn, that purple procession of bacchants. Thro’ a handful of pale squandered nights, right through the moonlit suburban parks, didn’t I dash after them like a moth enchanted by Undula’s smile. And everywhere in the arms of dancers I saw her, deliciously swooning and careening Undula in black gauze and lingerie, Undula with blazing eyes behind the black lace of a fan. So I followed after her with a sweet, burning fury in my heart until my faint legs no longer wanted to carry me, and the carnival spat me out half-dead onto some empty street in the thick predawn darkening.
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Bruno Schulz
Minor Literature[s]
The Story of the Paper Crown (excerpt)
October 19, 2023
A furtive thought flickers in the soul, lying in wait for itself—counting the days. It flits past and comes back again. It burrows under the skin, festers, and sprouts up. The thought whispers: What’s it all for? Do you know what all this is for? A fear of madness. . . The horror of the human soul… Consciousness of sinful love. . . The tragic nature of your lack of faith… So many maggots are gnawing at your soul! Stop it. . . Stop it! Enough!
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Józef Czechowicz
Minor Literature[s]
December 6, 2023
Slowly the evening strips from his finest cloth,
that for him a circle of ancient trees holds up;
you survey: and the realms from you withdraw,
one skywarddarting and one that drops…
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Rainer Maria Rilke
Minor Literature[s]
November 1, 2016
Luke was born on the first day of the last month of 1980. His older brother wanted him to be a girl, Martha, or at least a dog. They lived in an old house that used to belong to Germans when this was Germany. His mom sewed clothes, his dad painted cars. Besides the family of four, there was a cow, some chickens, a greenhouse with lettuce, tomatoes. In the attic, an illegal religious printing press operated.
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Robert Rient
3:AM Magazine
May 5, 2016
The midwife cried out in horror. The newborn in her hands didn’t look human. The villagers were to talk about it for years to come though nobody outside the family (except the midwife) ever saw the baby. Even the mother (hereafter we shall refer to her as “the biological mother”) did not examine him carefully. (We know nothing of the father’s reaction.) Right away an ambulance drove into the yard, and the doctor carried the boy away to Krakow.
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Wojciech Tochman
Spurl Editions Blog
May 27, 2015
What is the nature of Jabès’ relationship to Celan? What is it that gives Jabès authority to speak and to write of Celan in the first place? Why would anyone, especially the editors of a German newspaper, tempt a French-language poet to write words in memoriam of a German-language poet for German readers? Jabès attempts his own cursory explanation: “I love the man who was my friend.”
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Edmond Jabès
Black Sun Lit