Konstanty Aleksander Jeleński (in French: Constantin Jelenski) was born on 2 January 1922 in Warsaw, Poland.
He lived the remainder of his life as an émigré, first in Italy for several years after the Second World War, then settling in Paris in 1951.
He led the Eastern European division of the Congress for Cultural Freedom (after 1967, the International Association for Cultural Freedom) and was a prolific contributor to the Association's monthly publication Preuves and to Kultura, the Polish émigré literary journal.
Jeleński's criticism, translations and edited works addresses a wide range of literary, political and artistic topics, especially twentieth-century Polish literature and history.
Among his most influential works are many critical essays about Witold Gombrowicz and the edited volume Anthologie de la poesie polonaise (1965).