Jan Parandowski (1895–1978)

Parandowski, whose literary career began in Lwow and continued in Warsaw, was president of the Polish P.E.N. Club. A classicist by education, he concentrated on ancient Greece and Rome in his fiction and essays. His first published novel, King of Life (1921), was about Oscar Wilde. His series on show more classical subjects, among which The Olympic Discus (1933) is particularly outstanding, is distinguished by an exquisite style that continues Roman, French, and Polish Renaissance tradition in prose. After World War II, Parandowski achieved great success with a prose translation of The Odyssey. (Bowker Author Biography) show less