Roger Pulvers

Euterpe is one of the muses who holds a flute or two little flutes in her hand.

And the poem, The Muse, tells of a visit by Euterpe to her bedroom, to Anna Akhmatova's bedroom, at night, because the muse comes to you at all sorts of times.

So, when at night I wait for her arrival, Life, it seems, is hanging by a thread.

What are honors?

What is youth?

What is freedom?

before this lovely guest with the flute in hand.

Because she says, when the muse visits you, because I was a budding, I used to write poetry, I translated, then I started writing short stories.

I published my first book of short stories in Japan called On the Edge of Kyoto in

the autumn of 1969.

In other words, creativity spans centuries.

And if you're lucky enough to be visited by the muse, then you must sit down and write or translate or create something at that moment.

And so I thought, okay, I'm just going to sit and wait, continue to study languages.

And another language which I studied, I did postgraduate work in Warsaw in 1966.

So I learned Polish and I became a translator of Polish literature, which I love.

So there are a lot of Polish books on my bookshelves.

Well, with Poland, the person I've translated most is a playwright.

He's also a novelist, and his name is Witkiewicz.

He's the greatest Polish playwright of the 20th century.

And he came to Australia in 1914 together with Bronisław Malinowski, the anthropologist,