Marta Koronkiewicz

(b. 1987) – a literary scholar, critic, modern poetry scholar and translator.

Koronkiewicz chiefly explores the poetry of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, as well as the history of literary criticism. Her analyses join reflections on everyday life, a comparative perspective and a close reading of literature. In 2016, she defended a PhD called ‘Poetyka codzienności. Twórczość poetycka, przekładowa i eseistyczna Adama Ważyka w kontekście everyday life studies’ (The Poetics of the Everyday: Adam Ważyk’s poetry, translations and essays in the context of everyday life studies) at Wrocław University, where she presently works as an assistant professor. For an OPUS grant financed by the National Centre for the Sciences, she is analysing post-war criticism in Poland and British literary criticism in 1944–51, focusing on the ‘people’ and the conceptualisation of subjecthood and agency in discussions on culture.

Her most important publications include ‘“I jest moc odległego życia w tej elegii”. Uwagi o wierszach Andrzeja Sosnowskiego’ (‘There Is the Power of a Distant Life in That Elegy’: Notes on the poems of Andrzej Sosnowski, 2019), in which she performs an in-depth analysis of one of the leading contemporary Polish poets, focusing on the categories of (another) life, rhythm and utopia. She and Paweł Kaczmarski co-edited an anthology, ‘Zebrało się śliny. Nowe głosy z Polski’ (The Saliva Has Gathered: New Voices from Poland, 2016) collecting the newest Polish political poetry, and a selection of works by Jerzy Jarniewicz, ‘Sankcje’ (Sanctions, 2018), as well as her own selection of poems in a volume by Tomasz Pułka, ‘Podczas siebie’ (During Myself, 2018). She edited and wrote an introduction to a considerable anthology of critical texts on the work of Andrzej Sosnowski, ‘Kwitek rozumienia’ (Receipt of Understanding, 2023).

She rendered the Polish translation of Muriel Rukeyser’s U.S. 1, which was given a Literatura na Świecie Award in the ‘New Face’ category. In the literary press, she has also published her own translations of such authors as Helen Dixon, Luke Kennar (with Tomasz Bąk and Paweł Kaczmarski), China Miéville and Nat Raha (with Tomasz Bąk).

Koronkiewicz is active as an organiser – as an animator of literary life and a contributor to various journals. She was the editor of 8. Arkusz, a new poetry supplement to Odra, and of WIDMA: A Journal of American and Polish Verse. She has also helped edit academic publications: Praktyka Teoretyczna and Przerzutnia. Magazyn literatury i badań nad codziennością. She has sat in competition and literary award juries, including the Jacek Bierezin Polish Poetry Competition and the Wiesław Kazanecki Mayor of Białystok Literary Competition.

Koronkiewicz regularly publishes essays and reviews in such literary journals as Dwutygodnik, Herito, Mały Format, Nowa Dekada Krakowska, Nowy Napis and Odra. She has also written many articles on literature, published in reviewed academic journals, including CounterText, Czas Kultury, Forum Poetyki / Forum of Poetics, Przekładaniec, Śląskie Studia Polonistyczne and Wielogłos.