Together with others of his generation, Kornhauser developed a new literary agenda and a new language: in times of change, when the Polish political opposition was emerging, he insisted on an honest description of reality. Although the youthful New Wave manifesto came to a natural end as times changed, Kornhauser remained particularly sensitive to language and to all falsehood imposed on communication by social ritual. He still cherishes the need for uncompromising literary criticism.
The evolution of Kornhauser's writing tends towards privacy, the individualisation of utterance and the search for detail. He began with protest, negation and egocentricity, then challenged the New Wave postulates to assume an ironic distance, and has now turned away from public issues and duties to private and personal ones. Było minęło / Been and Gone is his latest collection of poems. (Agnieszka Kosińska)
- Julian Kornhauser
Been and Gone / Było minęło
Wydawnictwo Nowy Świat, Warszawa 2001
© Julian Kornhauser, rights available
146 x 208, 44 pages, hardcover
ISBN 83-88576-40-2