Who is Wislawa Szmborska?

She won the Nobel Prize for Literature, perhaps the most sought after award by any aspiring writer. She is Wislawa Symborska.

She made her way as poet with her poem, “Szukam Slowa” , or I am looking for a Word which was  published in a newspaper in 1945. After 3 long years, she was able to finish her first collection of poems but was not published later on since her work was considered to be too bourgeois by the communist party.

Her work has been translated in so many languages passing on to every reader the beauty of her work. Wislawa has also been distinguished winning the Goethe Prize  (1991) and Herder Prize  (1995). She has a degree of Honorary Doctor of Letters of Poznan University (1995) but had an undergaduate on Sociology. In 1996 she received the Polish PEN Club prize.

Between 1953-1981, she was employed as a poetry editor and columnist in Kraków literary weekly "Zycie Literackie". Some of her essays "Lektury Nadobowiazkowe" appeared in the publication.

What is fascinating about her writing is the simplicity of the verses. But in its simplicity, one can relate and understand the grandness of the message her poetry.

In her first collection of poems, her theme centered and shifted to a more political attack appearing in 1952 under the title DLATEGO ZYJEMY. She is few of the women poets who have explored socialism in her works. Her poetry, especially by the 1950s was seen as untruthful and yet poignant in its own respect.

Up until now, her works are reflection of her ability to toy with language, embellished and coated words like a true master writer. Later on, her poetry portrays her pessimism with regard to the future of mankind writing in a tone of irony and yet appealing enough to catch the audience.

“ While skepticism has marked her views of the human condition, its has not stopped her from believing in the power of words and the joy arising from imagination. Szymborska often uses ordinary speech and proverbs but gives them a fresh and arresting meaning. Is there then a world where I rule absolutely on fate? A time I bind with chains of signs? An existence become endless at my bidding? The joy of writing. The power of preserving. Revenge of a mortal hand. (from 'The Joy of Writing,' 1967) From 1953 to 1981 she worked on the Krakow literary magazine Zycie Literackie as poetry editor and columnist.”

She published 16 collections of poetry: Dlatego zyjemy (1952), Pytania zadawane sobie (1954), Wolanie do Yeti (1957), Sól (1962), Wiersze wybrane (1964), Poezje wybrane (1967), Sto pociech (1967), Poezje (1970), Wszelki wypadek (1972), Wybór wierszy (1973), Tarsjusz i inne wiersze (1976), Wielka liczba (1976), Poezje wybrane II (1983), Ludzie na moscie (1986). Koniec i poczatek (1993, 1996), Widok z ziarnkiem piasku. 102 wiersze (1996). Wislawa Szymborska has also translated French poetry.