Zofia Nałkowska


Zofia Nałkowska was a Polish prose writer, dramatist, and prolific essayist. She served as the executive member of the prestigious Polish Academy of Literature during the interwar period.

Biography

Nałkowska was born into a family of intellectuals dedicated to issues of social justice, and studied at the clandestine Flying University under the Russian partition. Upon Poland's return to independence she became one of the country's most distinguished feminist writers of novels, novellas and stage-plays characterized by socio-realism and psychological depth.

Literary output

Nałkowska's first literary success was the Romans Teresy Hennert followed by a slew of popular novels. She is best known for her books Granica, the Węzły życia and Medaliony.
In her writing, Nałkowska boldly tackled difficult and controversial subjects, professing in her 1932 article "Organizacja erotyzmu" published in the :pl:Wiadomości Literackie|Wiadomości Literackie magazine – the premier literary periodical in Poland at the time – that:

...a rational, nay, intellectual approach to eroticism must be encouraged and strengthened, to allow for a consideration of eroticism in conjunction with other aspects of the life of the human community. Eroticism is not a private matter of the individual. It has its ramifications within all domains of human life and it is not possible to separate it from them by way of contemptuous disparagement in the name of morality, discretion, or yet by a demotion on the hierarchy of subjects worthy of intellectual attention: it cannot be isolated by prudery or relegated to science for its purely biological dimension."

and Zofia Nałkowska adorned with dark bronze bust, in Powązki Cemetery, Warsaw

Tribute

On November 10, 2014, Google celebrated her 130th birthday with a Google Doodle.

Works

Novels