SOBOLEWSKA Anna

Born on 10 May 1947 in Gdansk; daughter of the journalist Zdzisław Stańczak, and Jadwiga, née Strancman, who was a journalist and later a poet and author of autobiographical prose. She and her parents moved to Warsaw in 1951. She attended the Klementyna Tańska Hoffmanowa Grammar School no. IX in the city, completing her advanced secondary education there in 1965. She then studied English philology at the University of Warsaw (UW). She graduated with a master's degree in 1970 and subsequently worked as an English language teacher at the Romuald Traugutt Grammar School no. XLV in Warsaw until 1972. She made her debut in 1969 with a translation of Tom Hopkinson's prose piece The Boy who went to Work, which appeared in Polish as Chłopiec, który poszedł do pracy in the student periodical "Itd" (no. 3). She made her debut as a literary critic in 1970 with an article on the difficulties of translating literary texts, Pegaz i wędzidło (Pegasus and the Bridle), which appeared in "Itd" (no. 38). Her articles, essays and reviews subsequently appeared in a number of periodicals, including "Nowy Wyraz" (1972 and 1974-75), "Kultura" (1972-75), "Nowe Książki" (intermittently from 1973) and "Twórczość" (intermittently from 1979). Between 1974 and 1977, she was a doctoral researcher at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IBL PAN). After completing the doctoral programme, she was appointed assistant at IBL's Department of the History of Contemporary Literature (later the Department of Twentieth and Twenty-First Century Literature and then from 2012 the Department of Contemporary Literature and Social Communication). She was awarded a doctoral degree in 1978 for her dissertation Polska proza psychologiczna lat czterdziestych XX wieku (Polish Psychological Prose of the 1940s), which was supervised by Prof. Michał Głowiński. She was appointed lecturer at IBL in 1979. Her research focused on contemporary literature, especially the questions of psychologism, the evolution of genres in twentieth-century prose, comparative literature, and the relationship between artistic forms and religious consciousness. In 1981, she spent six months on a research fellowship at the Sorbonne in Paris. During the 1980s, she gave lectures on literature and religious studies as part of the illegal Flying University. During this period, she also became involved in the activities of the Main Committee of the Olympiad in Polish Literature and Language that is based at IBL PAN. She joined the Polish Writers' Association (SPP) in 1990. From the early 1990s, she was actively involved in the cultural and social work, publishing activities, and in numerous conferences in Poland and abroad, related to associations supporting disabled people. She was involved in the Polish Association For Persons with Intellectual Disability (Polskie Stowarzyszenie na rzecz Upośledzonych Umysłowo) from 1990 and the Association of Families and Carers of People with Down Syndrome Bardziej Kochani ("More Loved", from 1994). She also edited the latter association's quarterly, "Bardziej Kochani", and collaborated regularly with the magazine "Integracja". She was also actively involved in the Iskra (Spark) Association for Disable People from 1994. She collaborated with Polish Radio (PR) and Polish Television (TVP) on literary and social programmes that discussed educational issues and the integration of disabled people. She remained active as a researcher and literary critic, publishing articles and reviews in periodicals and newspapers including "Res Publica" (from 1988) and then in "Res Publica Nowa" (from 1993), "Odra" (intermittently from 1992), "Tygodnik Powszechny" (intermittently from 1995) and "Gazeta Wyborcza" (intermittently from 2005). In 1992, she was a research fellow at the Institut für die Wissenschaften vom Menschen (Institute for Human Sciences) in Vienna. That year she was awarded a habilitation degree from IBL PAN for her study Mistyka dnia powszedniego. Poetyka doświadczeń wewnętrznych w prozie i poezji współczesnej (Mysticism Today: The poetics of internal experiences in contemporary prose and poetry). Likewise in 1992, she joined the Polish Council of Christians and Jews, participating in its conferences, its annual Jewish Book Days, and giving lectures. In 1995, she was again a research fellow in Paris, while in 1998 she received a fellowship from the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences in Stockholm. From 1996, she was involved in the organization of the annual "Mironalia" festival that takes place on Tarczyńska Street to celebrate the life and work on Miron Białoszewski, with whom she, her husband Tadeusz Sobolewski and her mother Jadwiga Stańczakowa were friends. In 1998, she was appointed senior lecturer at IBL PAN. That year she also became a member of the Salzburg Seminar. In 2000, she was made state-appointed professor and in 2001 full professor at IBL PAN. From March to June 2001, she was a lecturer in Polish literature at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. In 2002, she started teaching courses in film studies at the Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński University (UKSW) in Warsaw. In 2005, she joined The Open Republic (Otwarta Rzeczpospolita): Association against Anti-Semitism and Xenophobia. During this period, she started publishing in the psychology monthly "Charaktery". She retired from IBL PAN in 2017. She twice travelled to India, in 2005 and 2007. She married the film critic Tadeusz Sobolewski in 1972. She has two daughters, the literary critic Justyna (b. 1972), and Cecylia (b. 1989). Sobolewska lives in Warsaw.