The Year of Wisława Szymborska
In her poem “Possibilities”, Szymborska wrote that she preferred non-circular anniversaries to be celebrated every day. On the day after the anniversary of her death, we release a film we prepared in collaboration with Katarzyna Koza, a doctoral student from the Faculty of Letters.
The year 2023 has been declared the Year of Wisława Szymborska in connection with the 100th anniversary of the Nobel Prize winner’s birth. It is difficult to find one specific reason why her poetry has become so important not only on a Polish, but also on a global level. Szymborska was read and respected by Umberto Eco, her poems received beautiful references in books by Jaume Cabre and Radek Rak, and during her lifetime she was friends with Zbigniew Herbert, Czesław Miłosz and Stanisław Barańczak.
Wisława Szymborska – poet, translator, essayist, columnist, lover of short, amusing poetic forms, finally awarded the Nobel Prize in 1996 – left behind 350 poems, which she published in twelve volumes of poetry published during her lifetime, as well as two published after her death. She has been translated into more than 40 languages. She made her debut in 1945 with the poem “I am looking for a word”, and was known for volumes such as “The Great Number”, “The End and the Beginning”, “The Moment”, “The Two-Crop”: she ended her poetic adventure with a volume with the significant title “Enough”.
