Conference on the poetry of Anna Frajlich
by Brian Porter-Szucs
“Here I am / I inhabit my own life”. Poetry, prose and epistolary writings of Anna Frajlich
Guest of honour: Anna Frajlich-Zając
Anna Frajlich – poet, writer, essayist, editor, lecturer of Polish language and literature, Slavic Philology Ph.D. Born on the 10th of March 1942 in the settlement of Katta Taldyk in Kyrgyzstan (the former USSR). In 1946 her parents came back to Poland and the family settled in Szczecin. In 1960-65 Anna Frajlich studied Polish Philology at the University of Warsaw. As a result of anti-semitic events of March 1968 she left Poland and moved to the United States. She worked as Polish language teacher at the State University of New York at Stony Brook and Columbia University in New York. She defended her Ph.D. dissertation in the Slavic Department of the New York University in 1990. In 1977-81 she worked for the Polish section of Radio Free Europe. Her poetry, articles and essays have been published in various journals in Poland (i.e. “Rzeczpospolita”, “Tygodnik Powszechny”, “Akcent”, “Migotania”, “eleWator”, “Kwartalnik Artystyczny”), the United States (i.e. “Tygodnik Nowojorski”, “Przegląd Polski”), and Europe (Paris “Kultura” and London “Wiadomości”). Anna Frajlich has been awarded with a Koscielski Foundation of Switzerland literary prize and a Literary Prize from W. & N. Turzanski Foundation. She has also received the Knight Cross of the Order of Merit and a title of honorary Ambassador of town of Szczecin. Frajlich is an author of 12 books of poetry (i.e. “Aby wiatr namalować”, “Tylko ziemia”, “Indian Summer”, “Który las”, “Jeszcze w drodze”, “Znów szuka mnie wiatr”, “Łodzią jest i jest przystanią”), one collection of short prose stories (“Laboratorium”) and essays (“Czesław Miłosz. Lekcje”). Two of her poetry volumes are bilingual: Polish-English (“Between Dawn and the Wind: Selected Poetry”) and Polish-French (“Le vent, à nouveau me cherche”).
recommended by:
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We remain assured that varied and prolific works of Anna Frajlich require wide research and inspire complex analyses. We would like to take into consideration not only the position of her writings in contemporary literature and culture but also encourage innovative interpretations of her poetry, prose and essays. We are also interested in the biography of the Poet perceived in the contexts of such cultural and methodological notions as identity, emigration, alienation or re-rooting. Thus, we expect the participants of our symposium to undertake the subjects of not only Frajlich’s poetry, prose, essays, dissertations and criticism but also her diaries and letters. Our aim is to create both an all-encompassing, general overview of her works, as well as a set of detailed analyses of specific texts. Therefore it is important to describe Frajlich’s individual poetics, discuss her place in literary tradition, analyze a variety of her styles, motives, topics and toposes used. We invite you to take part in the collaborative research of hidden meanings and cultural and contextual links of Anna Frajlich’s writings.
The conference takes place on 24-25th of October 2016. Applications of participation in the conference should be submitted via the e-mail address (frajlich.konferencjaUR@onet.pl) before 30th of May 2016. We reserve the right to choose only selected subject from the submitted applications.
After the application has been accepted by the organizers we request the conference fee to be settled before 15th July 2016 on the bank account:
Podkarpacki Bank Spółdzielczy Oddział w Rzeszowie
48 8642 1126 2012 1119 9353 0001
With the annotation: „Frajlich”
The conference fee is 500 zł and it covers the costs of symposium’s organization, conference proceedings and materials, accommodation, refreshments and lunches and publication of selected articles. The time needed for yours paper’s presentation should not be longer than 20 minutes.
Organizers of the conference: prof. dr hab. Wojciech Ligęza (UJ), dr hab. prof. UR Jolanta Pasterska (UR)
Secretary of the conference: mgr Anna Fiedeń frajlich.konferencjaUR@onet.pl
Scientific committee:
- prof. dr hab. Stanisław Uliasz (UR)
- dr hab. prof. UR Zenon Ożóg (UR)\
- dr hab. Kazimierz Adamczyk (UJ)
- dr hab. Józef Wróbel (UJ)
Sponsors:
- University of Rzeszów
- Polish Philology Institute
- Literary Theory and Anthropology Department
- Workshop of Research and Record of Literary Culture
- Polish Philology Faculty of Jagiellonian University
- History of the XX-th Century Polish Literature Department
Anna Frajlich-Zając
Anna Frajlich-Zając, photo courtesy of the writers’s family archive
Polish poet in exile, Slavic scholar. Born on rhe 10th of March 1942 in the settlement of Katta Taldyk near Osh in Kyrgyzstan (the former USSR).
Anna Frajlich-Zając was born to a Jewish couple from Lviv who came back to Poland in 1946. Anna Frajlich spent her early years in Szczecin and she finished secondary school there (in 1960). Her press debut came in 1958 in “Głos Szczeciński” and in “Nasz Głos” (the Polish supplement to the Jewish newspaper “Fołks-Sztyme”). In 1960-65 she studied Polish literature at Warsaw University (completing her Master’s thesis on Stanisław Brzozowski). When she finished studies she worked as a secretary to the blind writer Jacek Szczygieł, and next – under his direction – she worked in a magazine for the blind until 1969.
The landmark in her biography, like in lives of many Polish intellectuals, was a wave of antisemitism inspired and steered from the top, which started with the Israel-Arab war in 1967. It was popularly called “March 1968”. At the end of 1969, as a result of this “witch hunt”, Frajlich emigrated with her husband, Władysław Zając, an engineer, and their small son through Vienna to Rome, and next to New York. She worked as an instructor of Polish language at the State University Stony Brook and in Kimbell Research Institute in New York (1971-75). In 1972 Frajlich started to publish her poetry in the London “Wiadomości”. In 1977-81 she worked for the Polish section of Radio Free Europe. Since 1982 Frajlich has lectured in Polish literature at Columbia University in New York. In 1991 she received her PhD title at the Department of Slavic Languages at New York University. In 1995-2003 she worked as an examiner and consultant for court interpreters.
In 1984-86 Frajlich was on the staff of Tygodnik Nowojorski, a Polish-language weekly in New York, and since then she has closely cooperated with graphic artist Bartek Małysa. Frajlich publishes poems, essays and reviews in the Polish immigrant press (especially in Przegląd Polski, a weekly supplement to New York’s Nowy Dziennikrun by Julita Karkowska) and also in Poland: in Akcent, Midrasz, Odra, Plus Minus”(supplement to the Rzeczpospolita daily) and Tygodnik Powszechny.
So far Frajlich has published nine books of poetry which contain lyrical, often erotic poems, poems about different aspects of emigration, about traumatic feeling of rejection that can be overcome thanks to contacts with the mother tongue – which is the essence of the poetry and brings back links with the lost homeland. Frajlich often writes, in an interesting and critical way, about current Polish problems seen from the immigration perspective. In her poetry the big role is played by paintings and other works of art which inspire her and give a pretext to pose philosophic questions.
Frajlich received the Kościelski Foundation Award (1981) and W.&N. Turzański Foundation Award (2003), the Knight Cross of the Order of Merit (2002) and a title of honorary Ambassador of town of Szczecin (2007).
Literary profile
The poetry of Anna Frajlich can be called the poetry of removal, the poetry of uprooting and poetry of dreams of return. She began writing as a teenager and it seems that it was through writing that her world was shaped. Trees, bushes and birds from Szczecin were taken along on her journey through the world. Living on the other side of the ocean, she looks for them in the New World, compares the reality that surrounds her with that lost paradise. In an extensive autobiographical interview Frajlich says,
read more: Anna Frajlich-Zając
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