“A chat with Michał and Joanna” is the title of the afterword written by the well-known Italian poetess Chiara Carminati e pubblicata all’interno del libro Piccole Poesie di Famiglia (MIMebù 2021) and published within the book Piccole Poesie di Famiglia (MIMebù 2021).
The valuable poetic advice Chiara gave in the months leading up to the book’s release, working alongside translator Linda Del Sarto, finds fulfilment in the interview that closes the book’s pages.

The author, Michał Rusinek, and the illustrator, Joanna Rusinek, enthusiastically answered Chiara’s questions, allowing the reader to discover what goes on behind the scenes of a book and to get to know a little better the pens and brushes that bring the stories to life.

An excerpt from the afterword

A chat with Michał e Joanna

by Chiara Carminati

When I received the phone call from the publisher asking me to collaborate on the translation of a collection of poems by Michał Rusinek, I think I jumped up in my chair. That Michał Rusinek? The one who had been the personal secretary of Wisława Szymborska, my favourite poet and Nobel Prize winner for Literature?
It cannot be said that I knew Michał Rusinek in person, but rather through intermediaries: I had never met him but I remembered well his composed and ironic face as it appears in Life is Sometimes Bearable, the documentary on Wisława Szymborska. I knew him through the words the poetess had dedicated to him in her biography, and even more through those he had dedicated to her in the wonderful Nothing Ordinary, practically the only book by Rusinek published in Italy up to that time.
I knew that Michał Rusinek wrote poetry, and that he shared with Wisława Szymborska a passion for limericks and playful poems. However, I did not know that he wrote children’s books, so I was very curious to have a look at the texts. When I found out that it was a book dedicated to the members of his family, perched on the various branches of the family tree and framed like a gallery of heroes, I had no more doubts: it was sure to be a lot of fun.
Rusinek’s idea responds to a very simple principle, present in the form of advice in all writing manuals: talk about what you know best, about what surrounds you. And what, then, is more intimate, everyday and close to us than our own relatives? Even when they lived centuries ago, at home we never tire of telling their stories, of recalling their exploits at every family dinner, while their character traits become exemplary and the phrases they (perhaps) uttered take on the air of proverbs.
Rusinek therefore did not limit himself to close family members, that would have been too banal, but climbed the great family tree with joy and curiosity, seasoning this great salad of portraits with a dash of imagination.
Such an undertaking needed an accomplice of the same blood. As luck would have it (but perhaps not entirely by chance), Joanna Rusinek, Michał’s sister, is an illustrator by trade. Who better than she to accompany the poems with images, which often tell more than words?
This is not the first time that Michał and Joanna have worked together: other books signed by this special creative couple have already been published in Poland, but in this case it is particularly important that brother and sister have joined forces to pay homage to their lineage. And what a lineage! Monks, singers, painters, knights… there is something for everyone in this gallery of rhyming portraits, which take us through a succession of ironic and surprising stories, making us feel a little part of the family.
And since at this point we have become familiar with them, having even met their distant relatives, we take the liberty of asking Michał and Joanna a few questions as curious readers.

When you were children, did you play at matching words and pictures as you did in this book?

Joanna: During childhood, each of us was involved in our own literary-editorial activities. I, for example, used to create entire tomes on love full of illustrations. In fact, not very literary, because “HE LOVED HER AND SHE TOO” was the entire text of the novel. I remember Michał once wrote a blood-chilling story about a burnt-out kettle, based on real events.

Michał: I don’t remember any. Instead, I remember that when I was eight years old I wrote a science-fiction story about the crew of a spaceship. Fortunately, it was lost. Especially since I had illustrated it myself, and I have no talent as an illustrator.

Have you chosen relatives to talk about together?

Joanna: I think we managed to get all the relatives in the book.

Michał:

Everyone we know about. We had other legendary characters in our family, such as an inventor whose invention and patent had been withdrawn by the communist authorities. Apparently he had committed suicide because of this, but it was difficult to write about him for an audience of children. Just as it would have been difficult to describe a certain great-uncle who had only one eye, and who therefore when pouring vodka would put his finger in the glass to see if he was aiming right: he had problems assessing depth. I could have turned him into a great-uncle who poured water into the glass, but that would have been an affront to historical truth and a stain on his honour.

To continue reading the afterword by Chiara Carminati and the wonderful poems that enliven the book, don’t forget to buy Piccole Poesie di Famiglia!

Chiara Carminati 

Chiara Carminati writes and translates poetry, stories and plays for children and young people. Specialised in poetry didactics, she holds basic and advanced courses for teachers and librarians. In 2012, she received the Andersen Prize as best author. She has won important awards, including the Premio Strega Ragazzi for the novel Fuori fuoco, the Pierluigi Cappello Prize and the Camaiore Prize for the poems in Viaggia verso and the Nati per Leggere Prize for A fior di pelle (with Massimiliano Tappari). Among his best-known translations are Il mondo di Beatrix Potter (Mondadori) and Un anno di poesia di Bernard Friot (Lapis).