Wislawa Szymborska
Awards: Goethe Prize 1991,
Nobel Prize in Literature in 1996
Born: 02/07/1923 in Prowent which is present
day Bnin, Kornik in Poland
Died: 01/02/2012 in Krakow at 88
where she was staying since 1931.
Language: Polish
Nationality: Polish
Szymborska was a home grown pupil and later studied
polish literature in 1945 and then switched to Sociology in
Jagiellonian University at Krakow.But she abandoned her studies in
1948 due to poor financial condition.
Her first poem was
Szukam Slowa (Looking for Words ) which was published in a daily
newspaper. She then published poems in various papers & periodicals.
Her first book was ready by 1949 but did not pass censorship. Her
early works had socialist themes and later she became a member of
Polish United Workers' Party. She,later got disenchanted with the
Communists and joined dissident groups to press for freedom of speech.
Her works evolved around war &
terrorism. She used paradox, contradiction and understatement to drive
home a philosophical themes. She was often referred to as the
Mozart of Poetry. Her number of poems were not much, around 350.
Marriage: married poet Adam Wlodek in 1948,
separated in 1954 but remained close to him till the later's death in
1986.
Major Influence: Czeslaw Milosz, a
Polish-American poet,translator & writer who was awarded Nobel Prize
in Literature in 1980.
Major Works:
1952: Dlatego
żyjemy ("That's
Why We Are Alive"), 1966: 101
wierszy ("101
Poems"),
Widok z ziarnkiem piasku ("View
with a Grain of Sand") in 1996,
Tutaj ("Here")
in 2009,
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