Wiesław Wernic (28 February 1906 in

Warsaw Warsaw, officially the Capital City of Warsaw, is the capital and List of cities and towns in Poland, largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the Vistula, River Vistula in east-central Poland. Its population is officially estimated at ...

, 1 August 1986), popular

Polish Polish may refer to: * Anything from or related to Poland, a country in Europe * Polish language * Polish people, people from Poland or of Polish descent * Polish chicken * Polish brothers (Mark Polish and Michael Polish, born 1970), American twin ...

writer and journalist, best known for his series of

Wild West The American frontier, also known as the Old West, and popularly known as the Wild West, encompasses the geography, history, folklore, and culture associated with the forward wave of American expansion in mainland North America that bega ...

books, sometimes called "Polish

Karl May Karl Friedrich May ( , ; 25 February 1842 – 30 March 1912) was a German author. He is best known for his novels of travels and adventures, set in the American Old West, the Orient, the Middle East, Latin America, China and Germany. He als ...

". During

World War II World War II or the Second World War (1 September 1939 – 2 September 1945) was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War II, Allies and the Axis powers. World War II by country, Nearly all of the wo ...

he was a member of the

Home Army The Home Army (, ; abbreviated AK) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) established in the ...

and fought in the

Warsaw Uprising The Warsaw Uprising (; ), sometimes referred to as the August Uprising (), or the Battle of Warsaw, was a major World War II operation by the Polish resistance movement in World War II, Polish underground resistance to liberate Warsaw from ...

, and after the war he worked for a Polish daily

Rzeczpospolita () is a traditional Polish term for a political community founded for the common good. The noun "rzeczpospolita", meaning "public welfare, general good or advantage" "thing, matter" and "common" is analogous to the Latin ''rēs pūblica' ...

and weekly "Tygodnik Demokratyczny". His first stories were published in 1927, he returned to writing in the sixties when he wrote his first Wild West book "Tropy wiodą przez prerię". Over the next 30 years he wrote 20 books about the adventures of Doctor John (Jan in Polish; his alter ego) and his friend Charles (Karol in Polish) Gordon. Unlike Karl May to whom he was often compared, Wernic visited United States a number of times where he met with American Indians and was a leading authority on the history and customs of the Wild West. Some of his books were translated into

German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...

, Slovak,

Romanian Romanian may refer to: *anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Romania **Romanians, an ethnic group **Romanian language, a Romance language ***Romanian dialects, variants of the Romanian language **Romanian cuisine, traditional ...

and

Czech Czech may refer to: * Anything from or related to the Czech Republic, a country in Europe ** Czech language ** Czechs, the people of the area ** Czech culture ** Czech cuisine * One of three mythical brothers, Lech, Czech, and Rus *Czech (surnam ...

languages. He sold well over 2,000,000 books in Poland and over 350,000 in other languages.

Works

* 1965 ( in German, in Slovak, in Czech) * 1966 ( in German, in Slovak, in Romanian) * 1967 ( in German, in Czech) * ''Colorado'' 1969 (''Colorado'' in German) * 1970 * 1970 * 1972 * 1972 * 1973 * 1974 * 1975 * 1976 * ''Barry Bede'' 1977 * ''Old Gray'' 1978 * 1980 * 1982 * 1983 * 1985 * 1988 * 1990

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Wernic, Wieslaw 1906 births 1986 deaths Home Army members Polish male novelists Polish Lutherans Western (genre) writers Polish male journalists 20th-century Polish novelists 20th-century Polish journalists Polish writers of young adult literature 20th-century Lutherans Warsaw Uprising insurgents