Biobibliographical Note

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Biobibliographical Note

Wislawa Szymborska was born 2 July 1923 in the small western Polish town of Bnin (now a part of Kórnik), near Poznan. Since 1931 she has been living in Cracow, where she studied Polish literature and sociology at the Jagellonian University between 1945 and 1948. In March 1945 she made her début with the poem “Szukam slowa” (“I seek the word”) in a weekly supplement of the daily paper Dziennik Polski, and during the period immediately after the war she continued to publish poems in various newspapers and periodicals. From 1953 to 1981 she was on the editorial staff of the weekly magazine Zycie Literackie (Literary Life), where in a column entitled “Non-compulsory reading” she reviewed books on a wide variety of subjects: from tourism, cooking, gardening and witchcraft to the history of art, T.S. Eliot‘s cat poetry and Edward Lear’s nonsense verse. Szymborska has also translated a fair amount of lyric poetry, especially French Baroque poetry and Agrippa d’Aubigné. During the 1980s she collaborated under the pseudonym Stanczykówna in the Polish “samizdat” publication Arka and in the exile magazine Kultura, which was published in Paris. Her poetry can be found in a large number of European languages, and also in Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese and Chinese.

Prizes and distinctions
The City of Cracow Prize for Literature 1954.
The Polish Ministry of Culture Prize 1963.
The Goethe Prize 1991.
The Herder Prize 1995.
Honorary Doctor of the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznan 1995.
The Polish PEN Club prize 1996.

Poetry
Dlatego zyjemy.– Warszawa : Czytelnik 1952 , wyd. 2 1985
Pytania zadawane sobie. Poezje. – Kraków : Wydaw. Literackie 1954
Wolanie do Yeti. Wiersze. – Kraków : Wydaw. Literackie 1957
Sól. – Warszawa : PIW, 1962
Wiersze wybrane. – Warszawa : Państ. Instytut Wydawniczy, 1964
Poezje wybrane. – Warszawa : Ludowa Spółdz. Wydawnicza, 1967
Sto pociech. – Warszawa : Państ. Instytut Wydawniczy, 1967
Poezje. – Warszawa : Państ. Instytut Wydawniczy, 1970
Wybor poezje. – Warszawa : “Czytelnik”, 1970*
Wszelki wypadek. – Warszawa : “Czytelnik”, 1972
Wybór wierszy. – Warszawa : Państ. Instytut Wydawniczy, 1973
Tarsjusz i inne wiersze. – Warszawa : Krajowa Agencja Wydawnicza 1976
Wielka liczba. – Warszawa : “Czytelnik”, 1976
Poezje wybrane II. – Warszawa : LSW, 1983
Ludzie na moscie.–Warszawa : “Czytelnik”, 1986
Poezje. – Kraków : Wydaw. Literackie, 1989*
Wieczór autorski: wiersze. – Warszawa : “Anagram”, 1992
Koniec i poczatek. – Poznań : “a5”, 1993
Zycie na poczekaniu. – Kraków : Wydaw. Literackie, 1996*
Widok z ziarnkiem piasku : 102 wiersze. – Poznan : “a5”, 1996*
14 wierszy. – Suprasl : Stowarzyszenie “Uroczysko”, 1998*
Poczta literacka czyli Jak zostac (lub nie zostac) pisarzem. – Kraków : Wydaw. Literackie, 2000*
Wiersze wybrane. – Kraków : “a5”, 2001*
Chwila. – Kraków : “Znak”, 2002*

Rymowanki dla duzych dzieci : z wyklejankami Autorki. – Kraków : “a5”, 2003*
Wiersze. – Olszanica : “Bosz”, [2003]*
Wiersze wybrane. – Wyd. nowe rozsz. – Kraków : “a5”, 2004*

Book reviews
Lektury nadobowiazkowe. – Kraków : Wydawnictwo Literackie 1973, 1981, 1992 (“Non-Compulsory Reading”)
Nowe lektury nadobowiazkowe : 1997-2002. – Kraków : Wydaw. Literackie, cop. 2002*

In English
Sounds, Feelings, Thoughts: Seventy Poems. Transl. and introd. by Magnus J. Krynski and Robert A. Maguire. – Princeton, N.J : Princeton University Press, 1981
People on a Bridge : Poems. Introduced and translated by Adam Czerniawski. – London : Forest Books, 1990
View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems. Translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh. – New York : Harcourt, Brace, 1995
Nothing Twice : Selected Poems. Selected and translated by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh. – Kraków : Wyd. Literackie, 1997*
Poems, New and Collected, 1957-1997. Translated from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Cavanagh. – New York : Harcourt, Brace, 1998*
Nic darowane = Nothing’s a Gift. Tl. Stanislaw Baranczak et al. ; wybór tekstów Mosze Chaim Porajer. – Warszawa : “Shalom”, 1999*
Miracle Fair : Selected Poems of Wislawa Szymborska. Translated by Joanna Trzeciak. – New York : Norton, 2001*
Nonrequired Reading : Prose Pieces. Translated from the Polish by Clare Cavanagh. – New York : Harcourt, 2002*
Chwila = Moment. Przekl. Clare Cavanagh, Stanislaw Baranczak. – Kraków : “Znak”, 2003. – Polish original with English translation*

Selections from her poetry appear in the following collections
Polish Writing Today. Ed. by C. Wieniewska. 1967
The Burning Forest. Modern Polish Poetry. Ed. and transl. by Adam Czerniawski. – Bloodaxe Books 1988
Ariadne’s Thread: Polish Women Poets. Ed. and transl. by Susan Bassnett and Piotr Kuhiwczak. 1988

Literature
E. Balcerzan, Kregi wtajemniczenia. – Kraków : Wydawnictwo Literackie 1982
Baranowska, Malgorzata, Wislawa Szymborska : Nobel ’96 for literature. Translated by Maria Chmielewska-Szlajfer, Chester Kisiel. – Warszawa : Interpress, 1996*
J. Kwiatkowski, Swiat wsród nie-swiatów. In: Jerzy Kwiatkowski, Remont pegazów. – Warszawa : “Czytelnik”, 1969
Legezynska, Anna, Wislawa Szymborska. – Poznan : Rebis, 1996*
Ligeza, Wojciech, O poezji Wislawy Szymborskiej : swiat w stanie korekty. – Kraków : Wydawnictwo Literackie, 2001*
Lütvogt, Dörte, Untersuchungen zur Poetik der Wislawa Szymborska. – Wiesbaden : Harrassowitz, 1998*
The Mature Laurel. Essays on modern Polish poetry. Ed. by Adam Czerniawski. – Seren Books 1991
R. Matuszewski, Zbliska. Szkice literackie. – Kraków : Wydawnictwo Literackie 1981
S. Melkowski, Rówiesnicy i bracia starsi. – Warszawa : “Czytelnik”, 1980
Milosz, Czeslaw, Wislawa Szymborska and the Grand Inquisitor. Literary Imagination: The Review of the Association of Literary Scholars and Critics, 6:3 (2004 Fall)*
A. Sandauer, Pogodzona z historia. In: Poeci czterech pokolen. – Kraków : Wydawnictwo Literackie 1977
Wegrzyniakowa, Anna, Nie ma rozpusty wiekszej niz myslenie : o poezji Wislawy Szymborskiej. – Katowice : Tow. Zachety Kultury, 1996*

Swedish Academy

* Updated in 2005.

Biobibliographical Note

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