Jane Irene Zielonko (1922–1982)[1] was the Polish-American translator of The Captive Mind (1953) by Czesław Miłosz, winner of the 1980 Nobel Prize in Literature.
"[11] 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.
[4] 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.
[3] 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 and that she had accompanied Miłosz to Stockholm when he was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1980.