Tadeusz rozewicz biography

Tadeusz R&#;zewicz died on 24th April at the age of There's a tribute from George Szirtes and an obituary in the Guardian.

He was one of the greatest writers of our time, unmatched as a chronicler of the crimes and hopes of the twentieth century, almost unique in his effortless mastery of both poetry and drama. He was born in in Radomsko, Poland. He fought in the underground Home Army during the Nazi occupation and began publishing with the clandestine press. After the war he studied history at Krakow and his first book of poetry, Niepokoj (Anxiety), appeared in He set himself the task of re-inventing literature in the face of a brutality that seemed to have devalued everything, including words themselves, for an audience of survivors.

In the early 60s R&#;zewicz also established himself as one of the most innovative post-war dramatists. Kartoteka (The Card Index, ) has been called Eastern Europe's Waiting for Godot. It was filmed by Krzysztof Kieslowski in Other plays include Do piachu (Dead and Buried, ), which provoked national controversies both during and after the Communist era, and Pulapka, (The Trap, ), a haunting study of Kafka. He has written theatrical and literary theory essays, and his work has been translated into 40 languages and performed all over the world.

Alongside recycling, his most recent works included the play cona. (The Card Index Scattered, ), and the prose memoir Matka odchodzi (Mother's Going Away, ) which received the prestigious Nike prize. His New Poems was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award in He lived in Wroclaw.

Polish poet, playwright, writer, and translator (–)

Tadeusz Różewicz (9 October – 24 April ) was a Polish poet, playwright, writer, and translator. Różewicz was in the first generation of Polish writers born after Poland regained its independence in , following the century of foreign partitions. He was born in Radomsko, near Łódź, in He first published his poetry in During World War II, he served in the Polish underground Home Army. His elder brother, Janusz, also a poet, was executed by the Gestapo in for serving in the Polish resistance movement. His younger brother, Stanisław, became a noted film director and screenwriter.

Biography and career

Tadeusz Różewicz was the son of Władysław and Stefania Różewicz (née Gelbard, a Jewish convert to Catholicism). After finishing high school, Różewicz enrolled at Jagiellonian University in Kraków. He then served in World War II. After the war, he moved to Gliwice, where he lived for the following two years. In , he moved to Wrocław, where he lived for the rest of his life.

Różewicz wrote and published fifteen volumes of poetry between and Czesław Miłosz wrote a poem dedicated to Różewicz and his poetry in Różewicz's debut as a playwright was in , with The Card Index (Kartoteka).

He wrote over a dozen plays and several screenplays. His dramaturgical work continued to be accompanied by volumes of poetry and prose. Some of Różewicz's best known plays, other than The Card Index, include: The Interrupted Act (Akt przerywany, ), Birth Certificate (Świadectwo urodzenia, screenplay to an award-winning film by the same title, ), Left Home (Wyszedł z domu, ), and The White Wedding (Białe małżeństwo, ). His New Poems collection was nominated for the National Book Critics Circle Award in

Różewicz's works have been translated into nearly all major languages. Two of his plays were translated into English and produ

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Polish Poetry Unites is a new video series for anyone interested in literature, history and reading. In each episode Edward Hirsch, a distinguished American poet, and the president of the Guggenheim Memorial Foundation, will introduce a celebrated Polish poet to American audiences. Among the three poets featured in the first season of Polish Poetry Unites, the best known in the USA is probably Tadeusz Różewicz. 

“Tadeusz Różewicz is a poet of dark refusals, hard negations. I would call him a naked or impure poet.  He doesn’t really have time for the grand floridity,” says Edward Hirsch, poet himself and promoter of poetry, host of the video series bringing Polish poetry to American audiences.

And then he continues:  &#;He’s an absolutely crucial figure in a generation of Polish Poets who are sometimes called New Columbuses. This is the generation of Zbigniew Herbert and Wislawa Szymborska, who are now somewhat more famous around the world.

What’s crucial about them is that they grew up in a period of time when Poland was experiencing one of its few moments of independence, but they came of age during World War Two and that stripped them of all illusions.”

Hirsh discovered Różewicz in the s, when he was in his twenties.

“I’ll never forget my first experience of a poem of his, which was called “In the midst of Life,” says Hirsch, and then quotes a part of the poem, which really changed him.

I just can’t tell you, this just went through me, as a way to rethink poetry from the ground up.”

The poem addresses the question: is poetry possible after the Holocaust, after the horrific years of the war that took the lives and dignity of millions of people.

“To me he’s the, kind of, Samuel Beckett of Polish Poetry, because he absolutely refuses to look away, there’s something relentless, and honest, and deeply truthful in his work” says Hirsch.

In the second part of this episode, 19 year ol