Henryk Pająk


Henryk Pająk is a Polish writer, journalist and publisher.

Biography

Coming from a peasant family living in the back country, Pająk nevertheless went on to study philology at the Maria Curie-Skłodowska University in the city. He then became teacher of Polish language in a gymnasium and contributed to a farm newspaper in Lublin. In 1965, he founded a poets association in 1965 called "Prom". In 1969, he compiled Henryk Cybulski's memoirs, Czerwone noce about Przebraże Defence, the self-defence of Poles against the Ukrainian UPA. Pająk wrote then a novel based on this subject matter, Los in 1969.
A prolific writer, Henryk Pająk wrote many novels and poems which made him notable locally such as Druga śmierć in 1971, Tam, za snem in 1991 or Wolny in 1992. He also headed the Lublin's section of the Polish union of writers. Under the communist regime, he was a member of the PZPR but left it during the Martial law in 1981.
After the collapse of communism, he created a book publishing company « Wydawnictwo Retro ». Since, he has written many books, such as a book about the Polish communist regime in 1997, written with Stanisław Żochowski, or a biography of Józef Piłsudski. He also wrote a well-documented inquiry on the former communist secret police — the UB-SB — in 3 volumes. Following the publication of this book, he was called to testify for the new intelligence agency UOP.

Works