“In our time only farce is possible:” Sławomir Mrożek and the Shades of Absurdity – A talk by Jaroslaw Anders
When: Tuesday, October 1, 2024, 4:00 PM
This is the tenth episode in a webinar series dedicated to Polish literature presented together with the Polish Program at CUNY Hunter College.
The event is part of the Tadeusz Solowij Lectures of the Kosciuszko Foundation. It is free and open to the public. Spots are limited, and registration is required. In lieu of admission, a donation towards the KF Cultural Fund is appreciated.
Sławomir Mrożek, Polish dramatist, short fiction writer, columnist, filmmaker, and unmatched cartoonist—was one of the most celebrated and internationally recognized Polish authors of the post-war era. Known for his dark-comic vision and an acute sense of the absurd, he can be credited with revitalizing the Polish post-war drama, introducing irreverence and acerbity into Polish national debates, and enriching the Polish language with memorable phrases used till the present day. Received in Poland primarily as a political satirist, he was treated abroad as a representative of the existentialist Theatre of the Absurd, and placed next to the likes of Samuel Beckett, Eugene Ionesco, or Harold Pinter.
Jaroslaw Anders talks about the writing, career, and the restless life of this atypical and often confounding figure in modern Polish letters.
Jaroslaw Anders is a Polish literary critic, translator, and editor living in Washington, DC. He is the author of Between Fire and Sleep: Essays on Modern Polish Poetry and Prose (Yale, 2009), and many essays published in The New York Review of Books, The New Republic, The Los Angeles Book Review, and other publications. He translated into Polish books by Susan Sontag, and into English Barbarian in the Garden by Zbigniew Herbert, Rondo by Kazimierz Brandys, and The Subtenant by Hanna Krall.
Dr. Malgorzata Pospiech is a writer, documentary filmmaker, journalist, photographer, and published translator. Her three novels were long-listed for the Central Europe Literary Award. Professor Pospiech is in charge of the Polish language and literature program at CUNY Hunter College, sponsored by the Kosciuszko Foundation.
