Miron Białoszewski was a Polish poet, prose writer, and playwright whose work captures an intense, often raw, depiction of human experience. His poetry and prose are distinguished by unconventional language and a penetrating gaze at reality, frequently drawing from his personal experiences. He documented his memories of the Warsaw Uprising in a memorable prose work that became a cornerstone of his literary output. Białoszewski's style is characterized by its immediacy and its ability to reveal profound truths through seemingly ordinary words and situations.
Innovative and playful, the poetry of Miron Białoszewski is celebrated in this comprehensive collection of new translations, showcasing his unique style and significant contributions to postwar Polish literature. Known for his challenging yet rewarding work, Białoszewski's poems, short prose, and original playlets reflect a rich literary heritage alongside contemporaries like Miłosz and Szymborska. Translators Clare Cavanagh and Alissa Valles present the first full-length English collection, capturing the essence of Białoszewski's artistic journey from his debut to later volumes.
On August 1, 1944, Miron Białoszewski, later to gain renown as one of Poland’s most innovative poets, went out to run an errand for his mother and ran into history. With Soviet forces on the outskirts of Warsaw, the Polish capital revolted against five years of Nazi occupation, an uprising that began in a spirit of heroic optimism. Sixty-three days later it came to a tragic end. The Nazis suppressed the insurgents ruthlessly, reducing Warsaw to rubble while slaughtering some 200,000 people, mostly through mass executions. The Red Army simply looked on. Białoszewski’s blow-by-blow account of the uprising brings it alive in all its desperate urgency. Here we are in the shoes of a young man slipping back and forth under German fire, dodging sniper bullets, collapsing with exhaustion, rescuing the wounded, burying the dead. An indispensable and unforgettable act of witness, A Memoir of the Warsaw Uprising is also a major work of literature. Białoszewski writes in short, stabbing, splintered, breathless sentences attuned to “the glaring identity of ‘now.’” His pages are full of a white-knuckled poetry that resists the very destruction it records. Madeline G. Levine has extensively revised her 1977 translation, and passages that were unpublishable in Communist Poland have been restored.
