Andrzej Bobkowski – contre la tradition

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Andrzej Bobkowski – Against Tradition Andrzej Bobkowski (born October 27, 1913 in Wiener Neustadt, died June 26, 1961 in Guatemala) was one of the most prominent emigre Polish writers. His most outstanding books are Szkice Piórkiem: Francja 1940-1944 (Paris, 1957) and Coco de orо, a volume of short stories and essays, published in Paris by Instytut Literacki (Institut littéraire) in 1970. Andrzej Bobkowski, who left Poland in March 1939 and France — and Europe — in 1948, was a precursor of another well known Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz. In one of his letters to Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz he wrote that Europe was for him «the craddle of culture and concentration camps». Не rejected in his books ail claims of the European totalitarian and nationalistic philosophies. His work was strongly influenced by Joseph Conrad. Не created the concept of a «Cosmo-Pole», a citizen of the world, liberated from the provincial Polishness. Не had a deep sense of the French rationalism. A large part of his writing remains still scattered in such periodicals as Kultura (Paris), Wiadomości (London) and in Poland in Nowiny Literackie, Dziś i Jutro and Twórczość. Не was a writer of authentic individual freedom, rejecting social myths and the conservative part of the Polish tradition.