Andrzej Brycht

Andrzej Brycht, with the pseudonym Andrzej Norbert or Andrew Bright (born September 27, 1935 in Warsaw , † March 8, 1998 in Hamilton , Canada ) was a Polish poet and prose writer .

Life

Childhood and youth

Brycht was born in Warsaw, where he also lived during the German occupation and witnessed the Warsaw Uprising . He lost his father during the Second World War when he was escaping from the POW camp in Betting . After the war, Brycht first moved to Łódź and then to Koszalin , where he completed elementary school and two years of high school. In 1951 he attended the officers' school in Koszalin and finished 9th grade, but was expelled from school in 1952 because he had beaten up a superior. So he returned to Łódź and worked in a thermal power station . Although he attended evening school, he did not finish 10th grade. He made his debut as a poet in 1954 with the poems Biblioteka and Pamięci Tuwima , which were published in the local magazines Łódzki Express Ilustrowany and Łódź Literacka . Further poetry publications followed in 1955 in the magazines Dziś i jutro, Życie Literackie and Kronika . He married in September 1955 and was arrested in October for a street brawl. The further prison sentence was released in February 1956. He made his debut as a prose writer in 1956 with the story Ulica Pomarańczowa , which was published in the weekly magazine Kierunki .

Military service

In 1956 he did his military service and worked at the Wanda-Lech mine in Nowy Bytom . As a representative of his unit, he became Silesian runner-up in the boxing championships organized by the military in 1956. He was then transferred to the Wieczorek mine in Szopienice . Because of his participation in protests against the difficult working conditions, he was arrested several times and, after attempting suicide, was sent to a psychiatric hospital in Lubliniec . After he was stripped of his military capacity, he returned to Łódź. In 1957 he moved to Warsaw and worked for the magazine Kierunki and in 1958 for the magazine Współczesność . In November 1958 he was arrested for a brawl and sentenced to six months' imprisonment, but was released after only seven weeks thanks to the intervention of Jerzy Putrament . From 1960 to 1961 he lived briefly in Jelenia Góra . In 1963 he was sentenced again to two years' imprisonment for a brawl in Łódź, which he spent in Łódź and Sieradz until May 1964. During these years he wrote several short stories. After his release he married the art student Małgorzata Markowska in 1964, and the marriage was divorced in 1965. In 1966 he spent two weeks in Munich doing the German translation of his novel Dancing w kwaterze Hitlera . In 1967 he married the artist Aleksandra Gaganaszwili - the marriage was divorced in 1972 - and traveled as a sergeant with a military mission to Hanoi , where he spent three months. During these years he published several short stories, poems, articles and reviews in Kierunki (1956–1971), Życie Literackie (1957–1959), Odgłosy (1960–1961, 1965–1969) and Twórczość (1960–1966).

emigration

In June 1971 he stayed in Italy during a tour of the port cities of the Mediterranean and then spent some time in France and Belgium . There he published the story Chmury in the Paris magazine Kutlura in 1971 and Żywi in 1972 . In 1972 he emigrated to Canada , received political asylum and settled in Toronto . There he worked as a truck driver, car salesman and scriptwriter for documentaries. In addition, he continued to publish short stories in Canadian and American magazines, such as The Malahat Review in 1973 , The Antigonish Review in 1974 , and The Transatlantic Review in 1978 . In 1974 he married Krystyna Żeglińska - the couple divorced after 1980 - and moved to Hamilton in 1981. From 1984 he published again in Polish magazines, such as Twórczość and Kultura (1985, 1988–1989). In 1987 he traveled to Poland for the first time since his emigration and spent the years 1988 and 1989 there. After returning to Canada in 1992 he married the psychologist Lucy McGlynn. In 1996 he developed cancer and died on March 8, 1998 in Hamilton.

Publications

Poetry

• Czas bez Marii , 1961

prose

• Czerwony węgiel , 1960
• Find Trawy , 1961
• Opadanie ziemi , 1962
• Ulica Pomarańczowa , 1963
• Boss , 1964, together with Andrzej Makowiecki
• Dancing w kwaterze Hitlera , 1966
• Napad , 1966
• Operacja: bank , 1966
• Report to Monachium. (Reportaż z NRF) , 1967
• Sceny miłosne , 1967
• Marzenia , 1971
• Zmienna ogniskowa , 1986 in Twórczość , number 1
• Opowieści z tranzytu , 1986
• Azyl polityczny. Opowieść reporterska , 1989
• Stopa Ikara , 1990
• Sandra , 1990

Awards

• 1962: Kościelski Prize

literature

• Joanna Zawadzka: Andrzej Brycht . In: Współcześni polscy pisarze i badacze literatury . Tom pierwszy: A – B. Wydawnictwo Szkolne i Pedagogiczne Spółka Akcyjna, Warsaw 1994, ISBN 83-02-05445-3 , p. 300-302 .
• Joanna Zawadzka: Andrzej Brycht . In: Współcześni polscy pisarze i badacze literatury . Tom dziesiąty: Ż i uzupełnienia do tomów 1–9. Fundacja Akademia Humanistyczna, Warsaw 2007, ISBN 978-83-8934894-4 , p. 185-186 .