Anna Bikont (born 17 July 1954) is a Polish journalist for the ''

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 ...

'' newspaper in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

. She is the author of several books, including ''My z Jedwabnego'' (2004) about the 1941

Jedwabne pogrom The Jedwabne pogrom was a massacre of Polish Jews in the town of Jedwabne, German-occupied Poland, on 10 July 1941, during World War II and the early stages of the Holocaust. At least 340 men, women and children were murdered, some 300 of whom ...

, which was published in English as '' The Crime and the Silence: Confronting the Massacre of Jews in Wartime Jedwabne'' (2015). The French edition, ''Le crime et le silence'', won the European Book Prize in 2011. Barnes, Julian (19 November 2015)
"Even Worse than We Thought"
''New York Review of Books''.

Early life and education

Bikont was born in a Polish-Jewish family in Warsaw to journalist and Catholic-Polish writer Andrzej Kruczkowski. She has a sister, Maria Kruczkowska. Bikont was awarded an MA in psychology from

Warsaw University The University of Warsaw ( pl, Uniwersytet Warszawski, la, Universitas Varsoviensis) is a public university in Warsaw, Poland. Established in 1816, it is the largest institution of higher learning in the country offering 37 different fields of ...

Career

Bikont worked for Warsaw University until 1988. Between 1982 and 1989 she was an underground Solidarity activist. She was co-founder and editor of ''Tygodnik Mazowsze'' weekly, Poland's largest underground publication. In 1989 she became one of the founders of ''Gazeta Wyborcza'', the first legal newspaper published outside the communist government's control. It became independent of Solidarity in 1990. She has continued to work for the paper as a senior journalist. In response to

Jan T. Gross Jan Tomasz Gross (born 1947) is a Polish-American sociologist and historian. He is the Norman B. Tomlinson '16 and '48 Professor of War and Society, emeritus, and Professor of History, emeritus, at Princeton University. Gross is the author o ...

's history of the Jedwabne massacre, '' Neighbors: The Destruction of the Jewish Community in Jedwabne, Poland'' (2001), the Polish government commissioned an investigation led by prosecutor Radosław Ignatiew for the

Institute of National Remembrance The Institute of National Remembrance – Commission for the Prosecution of Crimes against the Polish Nation ( pl, Instytut Pamięci Narodowej – Komisja Ścigania Zbrodni przeciwko Narodowi Polskiemu, abbreviated IPN) is a Polish state resea ...

(IPN). Bikont began her own journalistic investigation, interviewing numerous people in Jedwabne, including descendants of survivors and persons living in the city when Gross's book was published. She expanded her work into the fiction book ''My z Jedwabnego'' (2004, "Jedwabne: Battlefield of Memory"). Writer

Julian Barnes Julian Patrick Barnes (born 19 January 1946) is an English writer. He won the Man Booker Prize in 2011 with '' The Sense of an Ending'', having been shortlisted three times previously with '' Flaubert's Parrot'', ''England, England'', and '' A ...

, one of the judges of the 2011 European Book Prize, describes her fiction as "more than a book of memory. It is also a book about forgetting, about the pollution of memory, about the conflict between the easy, convenient truth and the awkward, harder truth. It is a work that grows from its journalistic manner and origins into the powerful writing of fiction ." Her husband, journalist and director Piotr Bikont (1955–2017), died in a car accident in 2017.

Selected publications

;Books * ''Sendlerowa. W ukryciu'' ('Sendler: In Hiding'), Wołowiec: Wydawnictwo Czarne, 2017. * ''Lawina i Kamienie'' ('The Avalanche and the Stones', co-authored with Joanna Szczęsna), Warsaw: Prószynski, 2006. * ''My z Jedwabnego'' ('Jedwabne: Battlefield of Memory'), Warsaw: Prószyński, 2004. **''Le crime et le silence'', 2011. ** '' The Crime and the Silence: Confronting the Massacre of Jews in Wartime Jedwabne''. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 2015. * ''Pamiątkowe rupiecie. Biografia Wisławy Szymborskiej'' ('Dusty Keepsakes. The biography of Wisława Szymborska', co-authored with Joanna Szczęsna), Warsaw: Prószyński i S-ka, 1997. * ''And I Still See Their Faces; Images of Polish Jews'', (editor), 1996. * ''Małe vademecum Peerelu'' ('The Little Vade Mecum of Living in the Polish People's Republic', co-authored with Piotr Bikont and Wojciech Cesarski), Warsaw: Agora, 1990. ;Selected Essays * „Anachnu m'Jedwabne”, in: ''Ha-heshbon ha-polani: Imut im Zikaron'' (Facing Memory: The Polish Account), ed. Miri Paz, Tel Aviv: Hakibbutz Hameuchad, 2007. * „A Belligerent Voice in Defence of Peace, or Europeans in Wroclaw”, Edinburgh: ''Edinburgh Review'' nr 121, 2007 * „Lechosław Goździk. Il revoluzionario e il pescatore”, Roma: ''MicroMega'' 9/2006 * „L'intimidee”, in: ''La vie est un reportage'', Paris: Les editions Noir sur Blanc, 2005 * „We of Jedwabne”, in: ''The Neighbors Respond: The Controversy over the Jedwabne Massacre in Poland'', ed. Antony Polonsky and Joanna B. Michlic, Princeton and Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2004. * „Ryszard Kapuscinski celebrates Herodotus” (interview with Ryszard Kapuściński), New York: ''Omnivore'', A Journal of Writing and Visual Culture from the New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU, Autumn 2003 * „Seen from Jedwabne”, Jerusalem: ''Yad Vashem Studies'' XXX, 2004 * „Neighbours”, ''Index of Censorship'', UK: Thanet Press, 2001

Selected awards

* 2018 –

Ryszard Kapuściński Award The Ryszard Kapuściński Award ( pl, Nagroda im. Ryszarda Kapuścińskiego) is a major annual Polish international literary prize, the most important distinction in the genre of literary reportage. History The award was founded to celebrate and ...

(''Sendlerowa : w ukryciu'') *2015 –

National Jewish Book Award The Jewish Book Council (Hebrew: ), founded in 1944, is an organization encouraging and contributing to Jewish literature.European Book Prize for ''Le Crime et le Silence'' (“My z Jedwabnego”). * 2005 – Best History Book of the Year, awarded by ''Polityka'' weekly, for “My z Jedwabnego”. * 2005 – shortlisted for the

Nike Award The Nike Literary Award ( pl, Nagroda Literacka „Nike") is a literary prize awarded each year for the best book of a single living author writing in Polish and published the previous year. It is widely considered the most important award fo ...

, the Polish equivalent of the Booker Prize, for "My z Jedwabnego". * 2001 – the Grand Press prize – the most prestigious journalistic award in Poland, for articles on the crime in Jedwabne, published by ''

''. ;Fellowships *Cullman Fellowship, New York Public Library, New York, 2008/2009 *Visiting Fellow, The New York Institute for the Humanities at NYU, New York, January–March 2003

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Bikont, Anna 1954 births Living people Journalists from Warsaw Polish women writers 20th-century Polish Jews 21st-century Polish Jews