BIO
Born on 26 May 1949 into a peasant family in Koźle (today: Kędzierzyn-Koźle) in the Opole region; son of Józef Rybowicz and Helena, née Poplicka. He attended the primary school in Koźle and then spent a year as a pupil at a mining school in Katowice. He did not advance to the next class and in 1963 moved to the village of Lisia Góra, near Tarnów, where his parents had inherited a farm. From the age of fifteen he worked as physical labourer, including as an assistant bricklayer and as a warehouse operative. He joined the Grammar School for Working People in Tarnów in 1968, completing his advanced secondary education there in 1971. He then studied Polish philology at the Jagiellonian University (UJ) in Krakow for several months before abandoning his degree and taking up a job as a coal miner. After applying unsuccessfully to the Theatre School in Krakow, he returned to work as a manual labourer. He completed military service in 1972/73. He made his debut in 1976 with the poem Wyobraźnia (Imagination) that was published in the newspaper "Gazeta Południowa" (no. 262). That year he joined the Rydwan literary group. His poems and prose appeared in numerous periodicals, including "Nowy Wyraz" (from 1978), "Tygodnik Kulturalny" (from 1979), "Życie Literackie" (form 1979), "Poezja" (from 1980), and "TEMi" (from 1980). He received several prizes in literary competitions. In 1980, he published his first volume of poetry, Samokontrola i inne opowiadania (Self-control and other stories). Although he was not involved in the opposition, he was interned when martial law was imposed on 13 December 1981 and was held in custody in Załęże until March 1982. In 1985 he joined the Polish Writers' Union (ZLP). Years of alcoholism contributed to his death in Lisia Góra on 21 October 1990. In a vote to mark 25 years of the weekly "TEMI" in 2004, he was emerged as the winner in the category People of Culture.
Twórczość
1. Być może to. [Wiersze]. Warszawa: Zarząd Główny Socjalistycznego Związku Studentów Polskich 1980, 31 s. Pokolenie, Które Wstępuje..
2. Samokontrola i inne opowiadania. Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy 1980, 159 s.
Nagrody
Zawartość
Adaptacje
telewizyjne
3. Inne opowiadania. Kraków; Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Literackie 1985, 307 s.
Zawartość
4. Wiersze. Kraków; Wrocław: Wydawnictwo Literackie 1986, 53 s.
5. Wiocha Chodaków. [Opowiadania]. Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy 1986, 192 s. Przedruk zob. poz. ↑.
Zawartość
6. O kay. (Wybór wierszy). Warszawa: Staromiejski Dom Kultury 1990, 61 s. Poezja Szybkiej Obsługi..
7. Czekając na Becketta. [Opowiadania]. Łódź: Wydawnictwo Łódzkie 1991, 137 s.
Zawartość
8. Wiersze zebrane. Oprac. graficzne i red.: S. Potępa. Tarnów: Tarnowskie Towarzystwo Kulturalne 1995, 135 s.
9. Horošaâ novost’; Dobra nowina. [Wybór wierszy]. [Przeł.] A. Bazilevskij. Moskva: Izdatel'stvo „Vahazar”; Toruń: Wydawnictwo Adam Marszałek 2005, 131 s. Polsko-Rosyjska Biblioteka Poetycka.
10. Zwariować z życia. [Opowiadania]. Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy 2018, 368 s.