KEFF Bożena

Born on 2 February 1948 in Warsaw; daughter of the Polish Army Officer Henryk Umiński (born Keff) and the archivist Apolonia, née Umschweiff. She attended the B. Limanowski Grammar School (No. I) in Warsaw. She subsequently studied Polish philology (between 1969 and 1973) and philosophy (between 1974 and 1978) at the University of Warsaw (UW). She made her debut in 1975 in the periodical "Nowy Wyraz" (no. 1) with the poems Miejsce do przesuwania (Room to manoeuvre), Wieczór (Dla E. Maciejewskiej) (Evening – for E. Maciejewska) and Zanim to złączysz (Before you put things together). After graduating, she worked at the editorial office of the philosophy section of Polish Scientific Publishers PWN. During this period she published film reviews and articles in the journal "Film" (1981-86) and "Kino" (1986, 1988 and 1992). She moved to the Wiedza Powszechna publishing house in 1989, working at the editorial office of the humanities section until 1991. She then took up a research post at the Emanuel Ringelblum Jewish Historical Institute in Warsaw. Her book reviews during this period appeared in the "Ex Libris" literary supplement of the dail newspaper "Życie Warszawy" (1992-96), in the literary periodical "Twórczość" occasionally and in other publications. From 1995 she taught on the postgraduate programme in gender studies at the Institute of Applied Social Sciences at UW. She also published in periodicals and journals, including "Midrasz" (1997, 2000), which focuses on Jewish culture, in the bulletin of the National Women's Information Centre (Ośrodek Informacji Środowisk Kobiecych OŚKa, 2000-01), in the feminist quarterly "Zadra" (2000-01), and in the weekly magazines "Przekrój" (2000-01; under the name: Keff) and "Przegląd" (2003). She defended her doctoral thesis at the Institute of Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences (IBL PAN). It was titled Postacie Żydówek w polskiej literaturze przełomu wieków oraz dwudziestolecia międzywojennego (Jewish Women in turn-of-the-century and interwar Polish Literature) and was supervised by Prof. Grażyna Borkowska. She continued to teach at various institutions, including for a time at University of Social Sciences and Humanities (SWPS) in Warsaw, on the postgraduate degrees at IBL PAN (including the programmes in gender studies and creative writing), and at the Chair of Social Psychology at the Faculty of Psychology at the Helena Chodkowska University of Management and Law in Warsaw (from 2009; it is now the Helena Chodkowska University of Technology and Economics) where she taught philosophy, ethics and gender studies. In 2011, she became a member of the Association of Polish Writers (SPP) and the Polish PEN Club (joining its Board in 2012). She has a son, Michał Pałka Keff (b. 1977), who is a cameraman. She lives in Warsaw.