Krystyna Miłobędzka

(1932-2025) – a poet and playwright.

She debuted with a poem cycle, ‘Anaglify’ (Analglyphs), published in 1960 in Twórczość. Her book debut came with ‘Pokrewne’ (Related), released in 1970.

She is the author of plays for children and a theorist of children’s theatre. She defended her thesis, ‘Teatr Jana Dormana’ (The Theatre of Jan Dorman, 1990), at the University of Wrocław in 1983. She has worked at the Institute of Wood Technology in Poznań, Tęcza Puppet Theatre in Słupsk, and at puppet theatres in Wrocław and Wałbrzych. She has also run theatre and drama courses at the Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań.

Krystyna Miłobędzka occupies a distinct and distinguished place in Polish literature. Her poems are short and highly intense, addressing life’s major questions. Their subject represents the point of view of mothers, daughters, women entangled in relationships, surrounded by nature, loved ones, their own bodies (‘my suddenly all-alive’). Life and all its manifestations is a being that is ever in flux, re-imagining itself in ever-new forms. In these attempts to express her life (and also a universal human condition), it is of greatest importance to find a way to put it into words that are free of cliché. This is why nearly every one of Miłobędzka’s poems is, in a sense, a compromise between silence and falsity, between a search for form that comes from its confession and a language mummified by overuse.

She has won many literary awards, including: the Barbara Sadowska (1992), Culture Foundation (1993), Minister of Culture (2001), Literary Four Columns Award for lifetime achievement (2003), the Poznań Review of New Publications award (2004) and the Mayor of Wrocław Award (2004). ‘Po krzyku’ (After the Scream) was named book of the year by Przekrój (2004) and nominated for the Nike Literary Award (2005). ‘Gubione’ (Lost, 2008) was called book of the year by the Silesius Wrocław Poetry Award (2009). In 2009, Miłobędzka received the City of Poznań Arts Award for lifetime achievement in poetry and drama, in 2013 she also got the lifetime achievement award from the Silesius Wrocław Poetry Award, while in 2020 she took the Poznań Adam Mickiewicz Literary Award. For ‘ciebie ode mnie’ (you from me, with Hania Rani) in 2022 she was nominated in the PTWK Most Beautiful Polish Books competition. Her poems have been translated into many languages and included in various foreign anthologies.