Polish Writers on Writing

The Writer's World

by Adam Zagajewski (Editor), Edward Hirsch (Editor)

Featuring 20th-century writers, including Nobel Prize winners Czeslaw Milosz and Wislawa Szymborska, as well as celebrated poet Zbigniew Herbert and internationally renowned Bruno Schulz, this collection captures the brilliance and originality of a literary culture rightly considered one of the most important and influential of our time. These writers are branded by the political realities of their country — creating literature out of the brutality of the World War II, under the numbing and inhibiting Communist reign, and finally within a free society, but one freighted with the weight of its history.

Genres: Polish Literature, Poetry, Poland

320 pages, Paperback

First published March 2, 2007

About the author

Adam Zagajewski was a Polish poet, novelist, translator and essayist. He was awarded the 2004 Neustadt International Prize for Literature.

The Zagajeski family was expelled from Lwów by the Ukrainians to central Poland in 1945.
In 1982 he emigrated to Paris, but in 2002 he returned to Poland, and now resides in Kraków.
His poem "Try To Praise The Mutilated World", printed in The New Yorker, became famous after the 9/11 attacks.

He is considered a leading poet of the Generation of '68, or Polish New Wave (Polish: Nowa fala), and one of Poland's most prominent contemporary poets.

Source: wikipedia.com

Reviews

[Eva Stachniak]

A few lines from Szymborska:

The joy of writing.
The power of preserving.
Revenge of a mortal hand.