Zofia Romanowicz
Zofia Romanowicz (born Zofia Górska; 18 October 1922 – 28 March 2010) was a Polish émigré novelist, essayist, poet, and translator and an eminent member of the Polish literary and cultural communities in exile as well as Parisian intellectual circles.
Born in Radom, Zofia Górska was 16 when World War II broke out on September 1, 1939.
She stayed in Radom (Poland), where she participated in the Polish resistance (Związek Walki Zbrojnej) as a courier.
Arrested together with her father by the Gestapo in January 1941, she was sentenced to death and imprisoned first in Skarżysko-Kamienne and Kielce, then in Pinczów (Poland).
She stayed there until September 1943, when she was assigned to one of its labor camps, Neu-Rohlau near Karlsbad (Czechoslovakia), where she worked in a porcelain factory.
At the end of the war, she reached the American lines and then Rome (Italy), where she was mentored by Melchior Wańkowicz.
She graduated in 1946 from the high school established in Porto San Giorgio by the Polish II Corps.
She moved to Paris (France) and enrolled in romance philology studies at the Sorbonne university under the mentorship of Professor Jean Boutière.
They were married in July 1948 and managed the bookstore and publishing company Libella that Kazimierz Romanowicz had founded on Ile Saint- Louis in Paris in 1946 as part of the cultural section of the Polish II Corps.
Both venues were among the most important centers of émigré Polish culture during the Cold War.
She was an important cultural figure in Polish émigré circles and among Parisian intellectuals.
After Libella and the Galerie Lambert closed in 1993, she continued her cultural activities in France and in Poland.
She died at the Polish Retirement Home in Lilly en Val, near Orléans (France) in 2010 at age 87.
She published her first story, “Tomuś” and several of her poems from camp while in Rome with the Polish II Corps.
In the mid-1950s, she started writing essays and short stories in the journals Wiadomości Literackie (London) and Kultura (Paris).
In 1964, the Warsaw publishing house Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy (PIW) cancelled the planned publication of her novel Szklana kula [The Snow Globe] because Kazimierz Romanowicz was sending to Poland books that were forbidden by the Communist regime.
Libella published the novel in 1964, and PIW reprinted it in 2021 as part of the press’s 70th anniversary celebrations.
Zofia Romanowicz’ novels were translated into English, French, German and Hebrew throughout the 1960s and earned her the Kościelski Award in 1964.
After an interruption of 26 years in her publications in Poland, her novel Łagodne oko błękitu [The Blue Sweater], perhaps her most important contribution to the literature of the camps, was reprinted by the Catholic publishing house PAX in 1987 in Warsaw and received Warsaw’s Literary Fund Prize for the most important literary novelistic achievement.
After the end of the Cold War in 1989, as the émigré and local Polish writing communities reunited, she published her last two novels, Ruchome schody [The Escalator] and Trybulacje proboszcza P. [The Tribulations of Priest P.] in Poland.
Zofia Romanowicz made major contributions to European literature during the second half of the 20th century.
Even though she was forbidden to return to her homeland and to publish in Poland during the early postwar years, she maintained literary contacts there.
Her publications in the émigré milieu and in Poland are a mirror of the political and cultural ups and downs of the Cold War.
1960 Przejście przez Morze Czerwone [Passage Through the Red Sea] named best book of the year published in emigration by Radio Free Europe 1964 Kościelski Award 1966 Próby i zamiary [Attempts and Trials] receives “Wiadomiści Literackie” Award for best Polish book published in emigration in 1965 1971 Alfred Jurzykowski Prize for the totality of her work 1973 Groby Napoleona [Napoleon’s Tombs] named best book of 1972 published in emigration by Radio Free Europe 1976 Gold Medal for the totality of her poetic work, given by the Friends of Polish Art in Detroit on the occasion of their 200th anniversary 1981 Skrytki [Places of Oblivion] receives from the Union of Polish Writers in Exile the Hermina Naglerowa Prize for best book published in emigration in 1980 1985 Skrytki [Places of Oblivion] receives the Zygmunt Hertz Prize awarded by the Literary Institute of Maisons-Laffitte 1987 Łagodne oko błękitu [The Blue Sweater] receives the Literary Fund’s (Warsaw) Prize for the most important literary novelistic achievement of the year 1988 Laureate of the Union of Polish Writers’ Prize for the totality of her work 1994 Cavalier Cross of the Polish Republic’s Order of Merit 1994 Diploma from the Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Polish republic for outstanding contributions to Polish culture 1994 Publishers’ Prize of the Polish PEN-Club 1994 Honorary Distinction of the Polish Association of Book Publishers 2000 Prize for Literature of the Polish Ministry of Culture and National Heritage Brewiarz miłości.
Audio book, Warsaw, Zakład nagrań i Wydawnictw Związku Niewidomych, Pax, 1989.
Chapitre XV.” Adapté par l’auteur avec la collaboration de Patrick Waldberg.
JSTOR 4610272 “Zofia Romanowicz, la plus française des écrivains polonais du XXe siècle.” Revue de Litterature Comparée.
“O recepcji Baśki i Barbary Zofii Romanowiczowej “ [On the Reception of Baśka i Barbara by Zofia Romanowicz].
“Staging, Philosophizing, Witnessing: The Aesthetics of Brokenness in Zofia Romanowicz’s Work.” The Polish Review, Vol.
“In memoriam : Felicja Zofia Górska-Romanowicz (1922-2010).” Archiwum Emigracji : studia, szkice, dokumenty 1-2 (12-13), 2010. pp. 343–345.
