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Marek Bieńczyk
Marek Bieńczyk (Polish pronunciation: ; born 6 July 1956) is a Polish writer, historian of literature, translator, essayist and oenologist. In 2012, he won the Nike Award, Poland's top literary prize, for his collection of essays ''Book of Faces''. Life and career Born in 1956 in Milanówek, Poland, he studied Romance Languages and Literature at the University of Warsaw and has worked as a historian at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences (PAN). He is also a visiting professor at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. He has collaborated with the ''Tygodnik Powszechny'', and the French quarterly '' L'Atelier du roman''. He specializes in Polish literary Romanticism and contemporary French literature. His academic debut was published in 1990 and was titled ''Czarny człowiek. Zygmunt Krasiński wobec śmierci'' (The Black Man – Zygmunt Krasiński on Death). In 1999, his book ''Tworki'' won Paszport Polityki and a year later was awarded the Wł ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Milanówek
Milanówek is a town and a seat of a separate gmina, commune in Poland. Located next to the Grodzisk Mazowiecki County near Warsaw, it is often considered an outlying suburb of the capital of Poland but is in fact an independent entity administratively and culturally. Milanówek is however part of wider Warsaw agglomeration. Located on the Middle Masovian Plain, between Grodzisk Mazowiecki and Pruszkow, the town has approximately 15,449 inhabitants. Milanówek is served by Milanówek railway station. History Milanówek was established in the late 19th and early 20th century as a result of parceling landbelonging to Michał Lasocki, and lying along the Warsaw-Vienna Railway. Since the beginning, Milanówek was a summer resort for wealthy residents of Warsaw, who set up lavish summer homes that often, when the owners decided to move permanently, were turned into grand villas. The most famous of the early holiday-makers was Polish writer, Boleslaw Prus. Another permanent residen ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Władysław Reymont
Władysław Stanisław Reymont (, born Rejment; 7 May 1867 – 5 December 1925) was a Polish novelist and the 1924 laureate of the Nobel Prize in Literature. His best-known work is the award-winning four-volume novel '' Chłopi'' (''The Peasants''). Born into an impoverished noble family, Reymont was educated to become a master tailor, but instead worked as a gateman at a railway station and then as an actor in a troupe. His intensive travels and voyages encouraged him to publish short stories, with notions of literary realism. Reymont's first successful and widely praised novel was '' The Promised Land'' from 1899, which brought attention to the bewildering social inequalities, poverty, conflictive multiculturalism and labour exploitation in the industrial city of Łódź (Lodz). The aim of the novel was to extensively emphasize the consequences of extreme industrialization and how it affects society as a whole. In 1900, Reymont was severely injured in a railway accident, which ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Polish Literature
Polish literature is the literary tradition of Poland. Most Polish literature has been written in the Polish language, though other languages used in Poland over the centuries have also contributed to Polish literary traditions, including Latin, Yiddish, Lithuanian, Russian, German and Esperanto. According to Czesław Miłosz, for centuries Polish literature focused more on drama and poetic self-expression than on fiction (dominant in the English speaking world). The reasons were manifold but mostly rested on the historical circumstances of the nation. Polish writers typically have had a more profound range of choices to motivate them to write, including past cataclysms of extraordinary violence that swept Poland (as the crossroads of Europe), but also, Poland's collective incongruities demanding an adequate reaction from the writing communities of any given period.Czesław Miłosz ''The History of Polish Literature.''Google Books preview. ''University of California Press'', Berke ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Przekrój
''Przekrój'' (; ''Cross-section'') was the oldest Polish weekly newsmagazine in operation, established in 1945 in Kraków. After temporary closure in 2013, it was bought by photographer Tomasz Niewiadomski and subsequently relaunched in December 2016 as a quarterly magazine. Przekrój's matchless literary style and lively visual charm were created due to the collaboration with the avant-garde of Polish intellectuals, writers, poets, artists and cartoonists. Przekrój was the birthplace of writers such as Wisława Szymborska, Stanisław Lem and Czesław Miłosz. History ''Przekrój'' was created by the writer and graphic artist Marian Eile-Kwaśniewski (1910–1984) from Warsaw who, until 1969, was also the first and only editor-in-chief of the magazine. The magazine focused on current social, political and cultural events, both Polish and international. In the 1970s ''Przekrój'' reached a record circulation, with 700,000 copies per issue, by far the most popular magazine in the ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Gazeta Wyborcza
''Gazeta Wyborcza'' (; ''The Electoral Gazette'' in English) is a Polish daily newspaper based in Warsaw, Poland. It is the first Polish daily newspaper after the era of "real socialism" and one of Poland's newspapers of record, covering the gamut of political, international and general news from a liberal perspective. History and profile The ''Gazeta Wyborcza'' was first published on 8 May 1989, under the rhyming masthead motto, "''Nie ma wolności bez Solidarności''" ("There's no freedom without Solidarity"). The founders were Andrzej Wajda, Aleksander Paszyński and Zbigniew Bujak. Its founding was an outcome of the Polish Round Table Agreement between the communist government of the People's Republic of Poland and political opponents centred on the Solidarity movement. It was initially owned by Agora SA. Later the American company Cox Communications partially bought the daily. The paper was to serve as the voice of the Solidarity movement during the run-up to the 198 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Roland Barthes
Roland Gérard Barthes (; ; 12 November 1915 – 26 March 1980) was a French literary theorist, essayist, philosopher, critic, and semiotician. His work engaged in the analysis of a variety of sign systems, mainly derived from Western popular culture. His ideas explored a diverse range of fields and influenced the development of many schools of theory, including structuralism, anthropology, literary theory, and post-structuralism. Barthes is perhaps best known for his 1957 essay collection ''Mythologies'', which contained reflections on popular culture, and 1967 essay "The Death of the Author," which critiqued traditional approaches in literary criticism. During his academic career he was primarily associated with the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) and the Collège de France. Biography Early life Roland Barthes was born on 12 November 1915 in the town of Cherbourg in Normandy. His father, naval officer Louis Barthes, was killed in a battle during ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Emil Cioran
Emil Mihai Cioran (, ; 8 April 1911 – 20 June 1995) was a Romanian philosopher, aphorist and essayist, who published works in both Romanian and French. His work has been noted for its pervasive philosophical pessimism, style, and aphorisms. His works frequently engaged with issues of suffering, decay, and nihilism. In 1937, Cioran moved to the Latin Quarter of Paris, which became his permanent residence, wherein he lived in seclusion with his partner, Simone Boué, until his death in 1995. Early life Cioran was born in Resinár, Szeben County, Kingdom of Hungary (today Rășinari, Sibiu County, Romania). His father, Emilian Cioran, was an Orthodox priest, and his mother, Elvira, was the head of the ''Christian Women's League''. At 10, Cioran moved to Sibiu to attend school, and at 17, he was enrolled in the Faculty of Literature and Philosophy at the University of Bucharest, where he met Eugène Ionesco and Mircea Eliade, who became his friends. Future Romanian philoso ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
The Festival Of Insignificance
''The Festival of Insignificance'' (french: La fête de l'insignifiance) is a novel by Milan Kundera. This is his eleventh fictional work. It is about a man named Alain, who has not seen his mother since his childhood; Ramon, an intellectual who has retired; D’Ardelo, a man who has a narcissistic personality; Charles and “Caliban” are two people who operate a catering firm; and Quaquelique is an old man who remains attracted to women. Quaquelique manages to seduce women using his skill at non-stop talking. The novel is set in Paris. The themes include "the erotic potential; the link between mother and child; the procreative role of sex; angels... navel gazing...and insignificance. The novels' characters discuss the philosophical ideas of Hegel, Kant and Schopenhauer. The novel is made up of seven parts (an approach he also used in his novel ''The Unbearable Lightness of Being'', among others, and representative of a structure he laid out in his book ''The Art of the Novel' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Identity (novel)
''Identity'' (french: L'Identité) is a novel by Franco-Czech writer Milan Kundera, published in 1998. Kundera moved to France in 1975. ''Identity'' is set primarily in France and was his second novel to be written in French with his earlier novels all in Czech. The novel revolves around the intimate relationship between Chantal and her marginally younger partner Jean-Marc. The intricacies of their relationship and its influences on their sense of identity brings out Kundera's philosophical musings on identity not as an autonomous entity but something integral shaped by the identities of others and their relations to your own. Plot summary The novel follows an intimate relationship between woman Chantal and Jean-Marc, alternating perspectives with each chapter. It begins with Chantal at a hotel on the coast of Normandy awaiting the arrival the next day of her partner. When he arrives they struggle to find each other, misattributing their loved one's identity to stranger on the b ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Slowness (novel)
''Slowness'' (french: La Lenteur) is a novel by Czech writer Milan Kundera published in 1995 in France, where the author has been living since the 1970s. It's his first fictional work written in French. In the book, Kundera manages to weave together a number of plot lines, characters and themes in just over 150 pages. While the book has a narrative, it mainly serves as a way for Kundera to expound his philosophical ideas about modernity, technology, memory and sensuality. Plot summary The novel is a meditation on the effects of modernity upon the individual's perception of the world. It is told through a number of plot lines that slowly weave together until they are all united at the end of the book. * Kundera, as narrator, visits a chateau on vacation and tells a story that seems to be a combination of fiction and fact. * A Chevalier from eighteenth-century France visits the chateau and experiences a night of carefully orchestrated sensual pleasure with its owner, Madame de ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Immortality (novel)
''Immortality'' ( cs, Nesmrtelnost) is a novel in seven parts, written by Milan Kundera in 1988 in Czech. It was first published in 1990 in French, and then translated into English by Peter Kussi and published in the UK in 1991. The story springs from a casual gesture of a woman, seemingly to her swimming instructor. ''Immortality'' is the last of a trilogy that includes ''The Book of Laughter and Forgetting'' and ''The Unbearable Lightness of Being.'' Plot Divided into seven parts, the novel centers on Agnes, her husband Paul, and her sister Laura. Several of the storylines involve real historical figures. # ''The Face'' establishes these characters. # ''Immortality'' describes Goethe's fraught relationship with Bettina, a young woman who aspires to create a place for herself in the pantheon of history by controlling Goethe's legacy after his death. # ''Fighting'' describes Agnes and Laura fight, while focusing on the deteriorating state of Laura's relationship with Bernard Be ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Milan Kundera
Milan Kundera (, ; born 1 April 1929) is a Czech writer who went into exile in France in 1975, becoming a naturalised French citizen in 1981. Kundera's Czechoslovak citizenship was revoked in 1979, then conferred again in 2019. He "sees himself as a French writer and insists his work should be studied as French literature and classified as such in book stores". Kundera's best-known work is ''The Unbearable Lightness of Being''. Prior to the Velvet Revolution of 1989, the communist régime in Czechoslovakia banned his books. He leads a low-profile life and rarely speaks to the media. He was thought to be a contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature, and was also a nominee for other awards. He was awarded the 1985 Jerusalem Prize, in 1987 the Austrian State Prize for European Literature, and the 2000 Herder Prize. In 2021, he received the Golden Order of Merit from the president of Slovenia, Borut Pahor. Biography Kundera was born in 1929 at Purkyňova 6 (6 Purkyně Street) ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
