Adam Zagajewski

Poet, writer, critic and translator, winner of numerous prestigious literary awards. Adam Zagajewski was born on 21 June 1945 in Lviv and died 21 March 2021.

Thu, 06/21/1945 - 12:00 - Sun, 03/21/2021 - 12:00

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Adam Zagajewski

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Adam Zagajewski, photo: Elżbieta Lempp

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Although written in free verse, Zagajewski’s poetry can be classified as Apollonian, harmonious and displaying references to classical norms. The poet, one of Poland’s most important contemporary writers, won numerous literary awards, including The Neustadt International Prize for Literature (2004) and The Zhongkun International Poetry Prize (2014); the former is sometimes called ‘a small Nobel Prize’, the latter – ‘China’s Nobel Prize’. For many years, Zagajewski was considered the Polish candidate for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Zagajewski was born to Tadeusz Zagajewski, an engineer, and Ludwika Turska. Similarly to a huge number of Poles, his family was forced to leave Lviv after World War II. They were relocated to Gliwice, where Zagajewski received his secondary education and graduated from high school in 1963. He left to Kraków – where he’d spend most of his life – to study at the Jagiellonian University. In 1968, Zagajewski graduated with a degree in psychology and in 1970 he received his second Master’s degree in philosophy. Until 1975, he worked in the Institute of Social Science at the AGH University of Science and Technology.

Zagajewski debuted in 1967, publishing a poem titled Muzyka (Music) in the magazine Życie Literackie. He would later publish his subsequent poems and critical texts in other literary magazines, including Odra and Twórczość.

In 1968, Zagajewski became one of the founders of the poetry group Teraz that was heavily influenced by the events of March 1968 – a political crisis caused by the vehement anti-Semitism of the communist authorities that in turn sparked protests amongst students that were suppressed by the police. The young poets forming the group postulated that language becomes authentic and reliable again (as opposed to the state propaganda) when rooted in everyday life, which would allow for literature to influence the surrounding reality.

Julian Kornhauser (one of the members of Teraz) and Zagajewski would later co-author an artistic manifesto of the Polish New Wave in poetry. In their book Świat Nie Przedstawiony (1974) the two poets did a critical revision of post-war Polish literature, accusing some of the writers of escapism and neglect of proper depiction of social reality. They opposed complex metaphors of their predecessors, hermeticism, empty words and phraseology, identifying those qualities as typical of political journalist propaganda of the time. They were advocates for literary realism.

Zagajewski’s and Kornhauser’s radical stance against literary conformity and aestheticism sparked many polemical reactions. Jerzy Kwiatkowski wrote about their book in the magazine Twórczość:

What a contempt they show for writing that strives to express universal themes. How averse they are to poetry that examines broadly understood contemporaneity instead of the terrors and fears of specific events.

Years later, Zagajewski wrote in the book W Cudzym Pięknie (1998):

The New Wave in Polish poetry drew its energy from collective emotions that would sometimes only be felt intuitively or hypothesised – this is where both its strength and weakness lay. It is not everyday that society manifests itself in church or at a shipyard [translator’s note: this is Zagajewski’s reference to protests and strikes under the communist regime. Most notably, the crucial strike of August 1980 was organised by the workers of the Gdańsk Shipyard]. A good political cabaret is fuelled by what a hypothetical everyman-intellectual is thinking and feeling at a particular point in time. Similarly, the poetry of the New Wave was a permanent, artistically dangerous dialogue with a hypothetical Critical Citizen, a pioneer of civil society that was only forming at the time, slowly and with much difficulty.

In 1972 Zagajewski published his first book of poetry, Komunikat (1972). In one of the poems, Prawda (Truth, trans. NS), Zagajewski addressed the reader directly, urging them to tell the truth. It is important to understand the context: the communist regime in Poland frequently censored authors unwilling to ideologically collaborate with the state; moreover, politicians and public figures regularly engaged in obfuscating state violence and misleading the public. Three years later, the collection Sklepy Mięsne (1975) and the novel Ciepło, Zimno (1975) were published. As Andrzej Kijowski wrote in the essay Prawda i Organizm printed in the book Kroniki Dedala:

Zagajewski spoke of truth the way writers describe love in their books. His novel elicits a love for truth, a passion for truth, an inclination towards truth. ‘The Sorrows of Young Werther’ constituted the Romantic soul and proclaimed a right to love. ‘Ciepło, Zimno’ by Zagajewski constitutes a critical soul and proclaims a right to truth – a truth one has to personally choose.

The New Wave generation could not have remained silent in the face of civic opposition that was on the rise at the time. In the mid-1970s, Adam Zagajewski engaged in the activities of the democratic opposition in Poland. In December 1975 he signed the Letter of 59 – an open letter signed by Polish intellectuals who opposed the changes introduced to the Constitution of the People’s Republic of Poland.

In the years 1976 and 1977, Zagajewski co-created the independent literary and social magazine Zapis that was published underground. In 1976 he started collaborating with Tygodnik Powszechny, a magazine considered to be the independent voice of Catholic intellectuals. Between 1977 and 1979, Zagajewski also wrote for Znak, a magazine that, similarly, grouped together intellectuals engaged with the democratic opposition. In 1978, Zagajewski was amongst the Polish intellectuals who established Towarzystwo Kursów Naukowych – an independent organisation aimed at breaking the state’s monopoly for higher education. Many prominent oppositional figures taught courses there.

From 1973 to 1983 Zagajewski belonged to the Polish Writers’ Union. In 1979 he joined the Polish PEN Club. Between March 1979 and September 1981 he stayed in West Berlin at the DAAD literary scholarship; during that time, he also went to the US for three months in 1981. Zagajewski was in Kraków when martial law was introduced in Poland in 1981.

He went abroad again in December 1982. He lived in Paris, publishing in the legendary émigré magazine Kultura. In 1983, he became one of the co-founders of the literary magazine Zeszyty Literackie.

The novels Słuch Absolutny (1979) and Cienka Kreska (1983) delve into the internal conflicts of a contemporary artist. Antinomy is a frequent motif of both his prose and essay writing. His subsequent essay collections and novel are accounts of the spiritual biography of the author. The texts included in Two Cities: on Exile, History, and the Imagination (translated into English by Lillian Vallee) and Another Beauty (translated into English by Clare Cavanagh) reflect upon philosophy, books that Zagajewski read, and his travels in Europe. He writes about Kraków and Paris, about the cities of his childhood, about the mythical places of his Central European education, but also prominent figures including Bruno Schulz, Friedrich Nietzsche, Ernst Jünger, Emil Cioran, and Gottfried Benn.

The poetry book List: Oda do Wielości (1983, published in Paris) opens a period marked by increasingly reflective tone and metaphors rooted in philosophy, literature, and painting. The collection Jechać do Lwowa (1985) was illustrated by Józef Czapski. A poem dedicated to the writer’s parents that the book includes ends with the assertion: ‘Lviv is everywhere’.

The collection of essays Solidarność i Samotność (1986) juxtaposes the need for participation in public life with the necessity of solidarity, crucial for deep focus that art requires. In an article about Polish literature in the times of the marital law in Poland, Tomasz Burek wrote for the Polish Newsweek:

The titular formula, ‘solidarity and loneliness’ is on point to someone who writes literature and simply must have some space, separated from others. […] It is the best definition for the decent behaviour of an artist who needs their space to create, but also wishes to retain their ties to community.

In late 1980s, Zagajewski took part in international literary events in Paris, Vienna and Lisbon, amongst other places. From 1988 to 2006 he taught creative writing at the University of Houston in the US.

After 1989, Polish editions of his books were published again, including the aforementioned book of essays Two Cities. He also published books of poetry – Ziemia Ognista (1994), Trzej Aniołowie (1997) and Pragnienie (1999).

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Adam Zagajewski in Paris, 1989, photo: Elżbieta Lempp

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Poeta Adam Zagajewski w Paryżu, 1989, fot. Elżbieta Lempp

Janusz Drzewucki wrote for the daily Rzeczpospolita:

Zagajewski’s poetry is like a crystal clear mirror showing a reflection of the world that remains delightful even when it is cruel. The poet tries to curb the world’s cruelty through art. It is no accident that he addresses his masters – asking them questions, opposing, but also admiring them. Zagajewski dedicates his poems to prominent individuals he had a chance to meet: Czesław Miłosz, Konstanty Jeleński, Józef Czapski, Ryszard Krynicki.

In 1998 the publishing house a5 published the Polish edition of Another Beauty (originally: W Cudzym Pięknie).

In 1990, Zagajewski married the actress and translator Maja Wodecka. Wodecka translated Zagajewski’s poetry into French, which brought her the Jean Malrieu Award in 1990.

In 1992 Zagajewski received the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation literary scholarship. In 2002 he and his wife returned to Poland for good, moving back to Kraków. They both remained active in the literary circles. Zagajewski dedicated the book Asymmetry (translated by Clare Cavanagh) to his life partner.

In one of the essays included in A Defense of Ardor (also translated by Cavanagh, as most of his writing) Zagajewski wrote:

And so here I am, like a passenger on a small submarine that has not one periscope but four. One, the main one, is turned toward my native tradition. The other opens out onto German literature, its poetry, its (bygone) yearning for eternity. The third reveals the landscape of French culture, with its penetrating intelligence and Jansenist moralism. The fourth is aimed at Shakespeare, Keats, and Robert Lowell, the literature of specifics, passion, and conversation.

Zagajewski pondered on the dangers our civilisation poses to spiritual life, writing about the paradoxes that arise when media expands but there is less and less to say. The book also includes texts about Nietzsche, poetry, and different cities, including Paris, Kraków and Lviv.

In 2007, Zagajewski started teaching at the Committee on Social Thought at the University of Chicago. In the same year, he published another book of poetry, Anteny. In 2014 he published Asymmetry, a book that marked his return to the subject of forgotten poets, one of them being Osip Mandelstam.

In poetry – both his own and the work of others – Zagajewski did not strive to invent new forms of expression. He was more interested in sense. As he wrote in the poem Full-blown Epic: ‘and so each poem has to speak / of the world’s wholeness’.

Adam Zagajewski’s work has been translated into numerous languages, including Albanian, Bulgarian, Chinese, English, French, German, Greek, Hebrew, Hungarian, Spanish, Swedish, Ukrainian. For a detailed list of foreign editions of Zagajewski’s work, please consult the writer’s bio on the website of Instytut Książki.

Translated by NS, March 2021