Jozef Wittlin
Józef Wittlin (born August 17, 1896 in Dmytrow near Radziechów , Galicia (now in Ukraine ), † February 28, 1976 in New York ) was a Polish author and an important expressionist and realistic poet .
Life
Józef Wittlin was born on August 17, 1896 on the Dmytrów estate in Galicia (then part of Austria-Hungary ) as the son of a Jewish landlord. He spent a large part of his youth in Lviv . There he attended high school from 1906 to 1914. Because his father's second wife was German, Józef Wittlin became familiar with the German language and literature at an early age. In 1915 he graduated from high school in Vienna. He was very good friends with Joseph Roth . Both volunteered for the Austrian army in autumn 1916. After his discharge from the army in September 1918, Wittlin began studying in Lemberg and, after dropping out, worked initially as a teacher, later as a publicist for various newspapers, as a dramaturge and as a freelance writer.
In 1922 he moved to Lodz and in 1927 to Warsaw . Since 1924 he was married to Halina Handelsmann, who holds a doctorate in Polish and German . During this time he undertook extensive trips in Europe, which significantly influenced his work. When the Second World War broke out , he was in Paris , from where he was evacuated to Biarritz in May 1940 . From Nice he and his family managed to escape to New York via Spain and Portugal in January 1941 with the help of Hermann Kogle . He stayed there even after the end of the war. From 1952 on he worked for the US Congress- funded Radio Free Europe , which broadcast programs in several languages in the Soviet bloc.
The author, Alma Wittlin , who also emigrated, is Józef's younger sister.
Create
From 1917 he worked on the translation of the Odyssey into Polish. From his friend Joseph Roth he translated, among others, Job , Zipper and his father and Die Kapuzinergruft , by Hermann Hesse the novel Steppenwolf . His main work is the novel The Salt of the Earth (Sól ziemi, 1935), the first part of the unfinished trilogy The Story of the Patient Infantryman .
Works (in German)
- The salt of the earth . Allert de Lange, Amsterdam 1937; Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 2000 ISBN 3-518-39669-2
- The story of the patient infantryman . Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 1986 ISBN 3-518-02594-4
- My Lviv . Library Suhrkamp , 1156.Suhrkamp, Frankfurt 1994 ISBN 3-518-22156-6
literature
- Renata Makarska: Between the private and the state. The mechanization of man and the excess of freedom in Józef Wittlin's and Andrzej Bobkowski's war narratives, in Between Apocalypse and Everyday Life. War narratives of the 20th and 21st centuries. Ed. Natalia Borissova, Susi K. Frank, Andreas Kraft. Transkript, Bielefeld 2009 ISBN 3837610454 pp. 115-132
Individual evidence
- ↑ "Z wami czuję się dobrze". Jeryz Giedroyc, Józef Wittlin. Listy 1947-1976 . in: Tygodnik Powszechny , February 4, 2019.
Web links
- Literature by and about Józef Wittlin in the catalog of the German National Library
- Short biography and reviews of works by Józef Wittlin at perlentaucher.de
personal data | |
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SURNAME | Wittlin, Józef |
BRIEF DESCRIPTION | Polish writer |
DATE OF BIRTH | 17th August 1896 |
PLACE OF BIRTH | Dmytrow near Radziechów , Galicia |
DATE OF DEATH | February 28, 1976 |
Place of death | New York City , USA |