Utopia

by Wisława Szymborska, Anders Bodegård (Translator)

Dikter i urval

Genres: Poetry

136 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1996

About the author

Wisława Szymborska (Polish pronunciation: [vʲisˈwava ʂɨmˈbɔrska], born July 2, 1923 in Kórnik, Poland) is a Polish poet, essayist, and translator. She was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature. In Poland, her books reach sales rivaling prominent prose authors—although she once remarked in a poem entitled "Some like poetry" [Niektórzy lubią poezję] that no more than two out of a thousand people care for the art.

Szymborska frequently employs literary devices such as irony, paradox, contradiction, and understatement, to illuminate philosophical themes and obsessions. Szymborska's compact poems often conjure large existential puzzles, touching on issues of ethical import, and reflecting on the condition of people both as individuals and as members of human society. Szymborska's style is succinct and marked by introspection and wit.

Szymborska's reputation rests on a relatively small body of work: she has not published more than 250 poems to date. She is often described as modest to the point of shyness[citation needed]. She has long been cherished by Polish literary contemporaries (including Czesław Miłosz) and her poetry has been set to music by Zbigniew Preisner. Szymborska became better known internationally after she was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize. Szymborska's work has been translated into many European languages, as well as into Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese and Chinese.

In 1931, Szymborska's family moved to Kraków. She has been linked with this city, where she studied, worked.

When World War II broke out in 1939, she continued her education in underground lessons. From 1943, she worked as a railroad employee and managed to avoid being deported to Germany as a forced labourer. It was during this time that her career as an artist began with illustrations for an English-language textbook. She also began writing stories and occasional poems.

Beginning in 1945, Szymborska took up studies of Polish language and literature before switching to sociology at the Jagiellonian University in Kraków. There she soon became involved in the local writing scene, and met and was influenced by Czesław Miłosz. In March 1945, she published her first poem Szukam słowa ("I seek the word") in the daily paper Dziennik Polski; her poems continued to be published in various newspapers and periodicals for a number of years. In 1948 she quit her studies without a degree, due to her poor financial circumstances; the same year, she married poet Adam Włodek, whom she divorced in 1954. At that time, she was working as a secretary for an educational biweekly magazine as well as an illustrator.

During Stalinism in Poland in 1953 she participated in the defamation of Catholic priests from Kraków who were groundlessly condemned by the ruling Communists to death.[1] Her first book was to be published in 1949, but did not pass censorship as it "did not meet socialist requirements." Like many other intellectuals in post-war Poland, however, Szymborska remained loyal to the PRL official ideology early in her career, signing political petitions and praising Stalin, Lenin and the realities of socialism. This attitude is seen in her debut collection Dlatego żyjemy ("That is what we are living for"), containing the poems Lenin and Młodzieży budującej Nową Hutę ("For the Youth that Builds Nowa Huta"), about the construction of a Stalinist industrial town near Kraków. She also became a member of the ruling Polish United Workers' Party.

Like many Polish intellectuals initially close to the official party line, Szymborska gradually grew estranged from socialist ideology and renounced her earlier political work. Although she did not officially leave the party until 1966, she began to establish contacts with dissidents. As early as 1957, she befriended Jerzy Giedroyc, the editor of the influential Paris-based emigré journal Kultura, to which she also contributed. In 1964 s

Reviews

[Katri · Rating 2 out of 5]

2,5 ish

[Zack]

fanns några bra men jag fastnade inte riktigt

[Kerstin Eskilsson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dikterna kändes anspråkslösa; de var skrivna med ett enkelt rättframt språk och budskapen doldes inte av litterära krusiduller. Ett stort tema är människans relation till naturen, eller kanske snarare naturens relation till människan. Szymborska beskriver inte naturen med samma romantik som många andra. I hennes dikter framstår den i stället som ganska fjärran och onåbar för människan, men vi kan ändå inte låta bli att hänföras av den och inbilla oss att den bryr sig om oss.
Szymborskas poesi har ofta ett utanförperspektiv vilket gör att man inte lever sig in i dikterna utan snarare känner sig som en stum observatör. Jag tyckte att detta var ett intressant grepp eftersom det ledde till många tankar. Döden och livet beskrivs helt utan lidelse, och avskalat alla känslor kan man se på dessa saker på ett annat sätt. Trots alla dessa tunga ämnen finns det en hel del livsglädje och optimism, så boken är inte alls betungande. Många dikter utstrålar en lågmäld förnöjsamhet och acceptans.
Några av mina favoritdikter var ’Samtal med stenen’, ’Autonomi’ och ’Jag tackar’.

["Robert Ekberg" · Rating 4 out of 5]

Tänkte ge den betyget "tre krumelurer" med motiveringen att den egentligen är en "klar fyra" men med tanke på den ohyggliga värmen utomhus så blir det en trea. Sen kom jag på att jag inte är så känslig för väderomställningar så det får bli en fyra med denna tempusblandade kommentar som appendix (blindtarm).

[Valentina Holm · Rating 3 out of 5]

Det är en mycket vackert skriven bok men jag tror att jag ibland har svårt att relatera för att jag inte har levt länge nog

[Erik · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this quite a bit even if it was a bit to deep for me to grasp. Will enjoy going back to this ever the years to come.