Wisława Szymborska’s literary career went through several stages before she received the Nobel Prize in literature in 1996. Unlike the Polish émigré writer Czesław Miłosz who defected to the West in 1951, Szymborska joined the Communist Party (the Polish United Workers’ Party) in 1952 and remained a member in good standing until 1966. Szymborska’s work reveals some similarities with the poetics of the European Enlightenment, but she has never belonged to a poetic school of any kind. In particular, her work has little to do with Romanticism or twentieth-century avant-garde and linguistic experiments so popular in Poland. Her verses center on well-known historical and commonplace events as well as ordinary human experiences.

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First published 04 November 2009

Citation: Grossman, Elwira. "Wisława Szymborska". The Literary Encyclopedia. 4 November 2009.
[http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=11961, accessed 21 November 2009.]