TADEUŠAS KONVICKIS

Tadeušas Konvickis
Tadeušas Konvickis, (or Tadeusz Konwicki 1926–2015) Polish writer and film director was also a member of the Polish Language Council.
Konvickis moved to Kraków in the spring of 1945 after the turbulent years of the second world war, where he enrolled at Jagiellonian University. He also began his career as a journalist at the weekly Odrodzenie. In 1947, he moved to Warsaw to continue working for the magazine. He was one of the most prominent literary proponents of socialist realism in the capital.

One of the most prominent members of the Polish Film School, Konvickis was named head of the Kadr Film Studio by the middle of the 1950s. However, the uniquely bitter quality of his work led him to depart from the style of his time. He won the Grand Prix at Venice in 1958 for his film The Last Day of Summer (Ostatni dzie lata), and he is also known for his masterpieces Salto (1962) and How Far Away, How Near (Jak daleko std, jak blisko, 1973), as well as film adaptations of his work: of Czeslaw Miosz’s Issa Valley (Dolina Issy, 1982), winner of the Nobel Prize, and Adam Mickiewicz’s Forefather’s Eve – Lava (1989).

His two novels, both published by the Polish underground press, have made him well-known: A Minor Apocalypse (1979) and The Polish Complex (1977).