Israeli poet wins Polish literary prize
PR dla Zagranicy
Paweł Kononczuk
11.03.2019 18:17
Israeli poet Agi Mishol was on Monday named the winner of the 2019 Herbert International Literary Prize, named after the prominent Polish poet Zbigniew Herbert.
Photo: DariuszSankowski/pixabay.com/CC0 Creative Commons
The verdict of an international jury, chaired by Ukrainian poet Jurij Andruchovich, was announced in Warsaw. An award ceremony is scheduled for May 15.
Jury member Tomasz Różycki said Mishol’s poems probe in the current situation in Israel. “They impressed us with their blend of a joy of life with serious themes of war, expulsions and politics,” he said.
Seventy-one-year-old Mishol was born in Romania to Hungarian-speaking Jewish parents who survived the Holocaust. She was four when her family settled in Israel.
Mishol is among her country’s most popular poets. Her verse has been translated into many languages, including Polish.
Past recipients of the Herbert Prize, which was founded in 2013, include Irish poet Nuala Ní Dhomhnaill (2018), South African writer and painter Breyten Breytenbach (2017), Swedish poet, prose writer and playwright Lars Gustafsson (2016), who died before the award ceremony, Polish poet Ryszard Krynicki (2015), American poet William Stanley Merwin (2014), and Serbian-born American poet Charles Simic (2013).
Zbigniew Herbert was one of the most influential 20th-century Polish poets, essayists and moralists.
He died in 1998, aged 74. He is among the most translated post-war Polish writers, his works having appeared in 38 other languages. (mk/pk)