FRANASZEK Andrzej

Born on 28 April 1971 in Krakow; son of the technician Ryszard Franaszek and the civil servant Irena Gurgul. He was a pupil at the Stanisław Wyspiański Grammar School (No. 8) in Krakow. He completed his advanced secondary education in 1990 and began studying Polish philology at the Jagiellonian University (UJ) in Krakow. He made his debut in 1992 with a review of K. Koehler's Wiersze (Poems), which appeared in the periodical "NaGłos" (no. 7) under the title Droga w kamienne serce blasku… (The way to the stone heart of the light). He continued to publish reviews and articles in this periodical until 1996. As a student, he also published in the bi-weekly "Dekada Literacka" (1992–95), while in 1994 he started collaborating with the Catholic weekly "Tygodnik Powszechny". He soon joined its editorial team and in later years occasionally used the by-line A.F.. Likewise in 1994 he made his debut (with an interview) in "Gazeta Wyborcza", where he later mainly published reviews and articles (in 1996, 1998 and intermittently from 2001). He also contributed to the newspaper's literary supplements "Gazeta o Książkach" and "Książki"). In 1995, he graduated with a master's degree from UJ. He continued to write literary criticism, focussing primarily on contemporary literature (in particular the work of Zbigniew Herbert) and on literary anthropology. In 2001, he began collecting material for a biography of Czesław Miłosz which was commissioned by the Znak publishing house. He could complete the work thanks to a year-long grant awarded by the publishers in 2010. In 2011 the work won an award from the Kościelski Foundation in Geneva. In 2004/05, he was a member of the jury of the prestigious Nike Literary Prize. Beyond the texts written for the periodicals and supplements where he was employed, namely: "Kontrapunkt" (intermittently 1996–2000), the local supplement "Gliwice" and the cultural supplements: "Kwartalnik Chopinowski", "Miłosz jak świat", "Europejski Poeta Wolności", „Nagroda Poetycka Silesius”, "Książki w Tygodniku", "Brave Festival", "Radość pisania", "Angelus" and many others, he also published in the periodicals and newspapers "Nowy Nurt" (1996), "Rzeczpospolita" (1996–98; likewise in the "Plus Minus" supplement), "Twórczość" (individual articles in 1997 and 2000, and using the by-line A.F. in 2009 and 2015), "Znak" (1998, 2002, 2004, and 2011), "Zeszyty Literackie" (individual articles in 1993, 2001 and 2007, with further contributions intermittently from 2009), "Polityka" (2006–07), and "Bliza" (2016). He has written (and co-authored) scripts for documentary films commissioned by TVP (Polish Television) on cultural personalities. He was a regular guest on shows on the station TVP Kultura including "Czytelnia" (Reading Room;around 2009–12), "Czytanie to awantura" (Arguments on Reading; 2012) and "Sztuka czytania" (The Art of Reading; around 2013–14). In 2010, he became an employee at the Zbigniew Herbert Foundation before becoming secretary of the International Prize named after the poet that was first awarded in 2013, He was awarded a doctoral degree in 2011 for his dissertation Kategorie negatywne w literaturze polskiej po roku 1989. Rekonesans (Negative Categories in Polish Literature after 1989: A reconnaissance), which was supervised by Prof. Paweł Marek Próchniak. He defended his thesis at the Pedagogical University of Krakow (Uniwersytet Pedagogiczny im. Komisji Edukacji Narodowej [UP]). He was appointed lecturer at the Chair of Contemporary Literature and Literary Criticism at the Institute of Polish Philology at UP. He became a member of the Polish PEN Club in 2011. He has worked as a host or co-host of the following literary programmes on Polish Radio 2: Rozmowy po zmroku (Talk after Dark; since 2012), Życie na miarę literatury (Life worthy of Litearature; since 2012) and Dwukropek (Colon; since 2014). In 2016, he was appointed to the Council of the Adam Mickiewicz Museum of Literature, Warsaw.

He is divorced. His daughter Antonina was born in 2001. She lives in Krakow.