The Polish Book Institute

In February 2024, a translation of Professor Anna Nasiłowska's Historia literatury polskiej (“A History of Polish Literature”) will be published by Academic Studies Press, Boston, USA. The author of the translation is Anna Zaranko.

Anna Nasiłowska wrote her A History of Polish Literature precisely with foreign readers in mind. The book summarises the history of our national literature in one volume in such a way that it can be of interest to an audience that has not had much exposure to Polish writing before. It is not, therefore, a publication intended for experts, but rather for those who would just like to take an interest in Polish literature. The book can be successfully treated as a guide to help the reader take their first steps into Polish literature.

Nasiłowska has undertaken an ambitious but important task, for just such a book on Polish literature has been lacking. There is, of course, Czesław Miłosz's Historia literatury polskiej (“The History of Polish Literature”), but this work, first published in 1969, is already somewhat outdated from today's perspective and, besides, written from the poet's rather personal angle.

A History of Polish Literature by Anna Nasilowska was published in Polish in 2019 by the Publishing House of the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences.

Anna Nasiłowska, is a Polish writer, poet, literary critic, historian of contemporary literature, and professor at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. Since 1990, she has been a member of the editorial board of one of the most important Polish periodicals of literary studies, “Teksty Drugie”. Her latest book is a biography of Stanisław Mrożek, published in 2023 by Wydawnictwo Literackie, entitled Mrożek. Biografia (“Mrożek. A Biography”).

The translation of A History of Polish Literature into English was supported by a grant from the National Programme for the Development of the Humanities.