Szymborska was born on July 2, 1923, in Kórnik, near Poznań in the west of the country, and died on February 1, 2012, in the southern city of Kraków.
“If she were alive, she probably would not have participated in these celebrations, because she did not like solemn ceremonies, and she did celebrate her birthday, as she said, but from a distance,” said Michał Rusinek, her longtime secretary and now the president of the Wisława Szymborska Foundation.
Szymborska published 13 collections of poetry, containing a total of 350 poems. She is one of the most frequently translated Polish authors in the world, with works translated into many languages including Persian, Arabic and Chinese.
A life-long typewriter user, Szymborska was famously averse towards latest technologies.
“One thing from the world of modern technology fascinated her—an e-book reader, which some company sent her to test," Rusinek commented. "The idea that you could fit a whole library in such a box seemed very attractive and practical to her. It was a solution to her constant problems with packing books for a trip. She said that she would very much like to have an encyclopedia in something like that. But actually, I think she liked the reader because it had only two buttons."
In her hometown of Kraków, a park named after her was opened on what would have been her 100th birthday.
It is the first literary park in Poland, and among the trees and shrubs, visitors can discover quotes from her poems. The park is located on Karmelicka Street.
Nearby, in the Małopolska Garden of Art, where an exhibition dedicated to Szymborska will be opened in the autumn, Lego Poland unveiled a model made of 21,000 Lego bricks depicting Szymborska's Nobel Prize ceremony with King Gustaf VI Adolf of Sweden.
The design and construction of the model was done by Mateusz Kustra, who is a certified Lego builder. He and his team spent nearly half a year creating it in strict secrecy.
Kustra, a Kraków resident since childhood, said: “Building this model was a personal experience for me. As a young boy, I would meet Ms. Szymborska in the street with my parents. It was a great experience for me and it still stays in my memory.”
Szymborska donated a large part of her Nobel Prize to charitable causes. She is buried at the Rakowicki Cemetery in Kraków.
To mark 100 years since her birth, 2023 has been declared the Year of Wisława Szymborska.
(rt/gs)
Source: PAP
