Aleksander Wat

Tomas Venclova

Aleksander Wat was, in many ways, the archetypal Central European intellectual of the mid-twentieth century, a man who experienced and influenced all the tumultuous political and artistic movements of his time. Yet little has been published about him, even in his native Poland. This book is the first account of Wat's turbulent life, accompanied by a thorough analysis of his extraordinary poems and prose works in their diverse periods and genres. Tomas Venclova, himself a poet of international renown, has uncovered numerous new biographical details, made the surprising discovery of an unfinished novel Wat began fifty years ago, and woven together the themes of Wat's life and work. At different times a futurist, surrealist, and Communist fellow traveler, Wat turned away from communism after his imprisonment by the Soviet secret police and became a vociferous spokesman for democracy....

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