Leszek Engelking
Leszek Maria Engelking was a Polish poet, short story writer, novelist, translator, literary critic, essayist, Polish philologist, and literary academic, scholar, and lecturer.
Engelking translated a vast amount of literature into Polish, from Spanish, English, Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Slovak but in particular from Czech.
Biography
Education, editorial, and academic career
Engelking was born in Chorzów in 1955 and spent his childhood in Upper Silesia. In 1979, Engelking graduated from Warsaw University, he received his doctorate in 2002 and postdoctoral degree in 2013. From 1984 to 1995, he was a member of an editorial staff of "Literatura na Świecie", a Polish monthly devoted to foreign literature. From 1997 to 1998, he was a lecturer at Warsaw University and a visiting professor at Palacký University, Olomouc. He taught at the University of Łódź.Literary Memberships
Engelking was a member of Association of Polish Writers since 1989, the Polish PEN Club since 2000, and of the Société Europeénne de Culture since 1994.Engelking was also an associate of the American journal Paideuma, the Czech journal Slavia, and the Polish monthly Tygiel Kultury.
Poetic career
He has published collections of poems:- Autobus do hotelu Cytera
- Haiku własne i cudze
- Mistrzyni kaligrafii i inne wiersze
- Dom piąty
- I inne wiersze
- Muzeum dzieciństwa
- Komu kibicują umarli?,
Short story and monograph writer career
Engelking's book of short stories Szczęście i inne prozy appeared in 2007,.Engelking published the following monographs: Vladimir Nabokov, Vladimir Nabokov - podivuhodný kouzelník and Chwyt metafizyczny. Vladimir Nabokov - estetyka z sankcją wyższej rzeczywistości, Surrealism, underground, postmodernizm. Szkice o literaturze czeskiej, Codzienność i mit. Poetyka, programy i historia Grupy 42 w kontekstach dwudziestowiecznej awangardy i postawangardy, Nowe Mity. Twórczość Jáchyma Topola, and Bytom w literaturze.
Engelking edited the anthology of British and American poetry Wyspy na jeziorze, the anthology of Czech poetry Maść przeciw poezji, the selection from the works of three contemporary Slovak poets, Oleg Pastier, Karol Chmel, and Ivan Kolenič, Oko za ząb, as well as the anthology of imagist poetry Obraz i wir.
Literary translator career
He has translated works by Nabokov, Daniela Hodrova, Jáchym Topol, Ezra Pound, Miroslav Holub, Charles Bukowski, Christopher Reid, Nikolay Gumilyov, Petr Mikeš, Ivan Wernisch, Ivan Blatný, Agneta Pleijel, Oldřich Wenzl, Richard Caddel, Jaroslav Seifert, Václav Burian, Egon Bondy, Maximilian Voloshin, David A. Carrión, Gerardo Beltrán, W. B. Yeats, Pavol Országh Hviezdoslav, Jiří Kolář, Karel Čapek, Basil Bunting, Amy Lowell, H.D., William Carlos Williams, Langston Hughes, Kerry Shawn Keys, sor Juana Ines de la Cruz, Federico García Lorca, Abel Murcia, Sergey Zavyalov, Iryna Zhylenko, Lina Kostenko, and Andrei Khadanovich.Engelking's selection of short stories by Ladislav Klíma appeared in 2004, his translation of Michal Ajvaz’s book of poems, short stories and a novel was published in 2005. Ajvaz's novel Voyage to the South in his translation appeared in 2016.
Personal life and death
Engelking's son, Wojciech Engelking is also a writer. Leszek privately was a fan of motorcycle speedway, football team Polonia Bytom, liked lager beer, and Armani perfumes.Engelking died on 22 October 2022, at the age of 67.