GRZEGORZEWSKA Wioletta

Born on 9 February 1974 in Koziegłowy, Silesia; daughter of the agricultural technician and head of the gatehouse at the paper factory in Myszków Ryszard Rogala, and Zofia née Lubas, who was employed at the Suw-Bud construction products factory in the village of Koziegłówki. She spent her childhood with her parents in the village of Rzeniszów-Hektary. She attended the Maria Skłodowska-Curie Grammar School in Koziegłowy, completing her advanced education there in 1993. In 1994, she started a degree in Polish philology at the Higher School of Education (WSP) in Częstochowa while working part-time at a McDonald's restaurant in the city. She made her debut as a poet in the mid-1990s,with her works including the 1996 poem Spadam (I am falling), which appeared in the literary bimonthly "Aleje 3" (no. 3; it was published under the name Wioletta Rogala). During this period, she also published works in other Częstochowa-based periodicals, namely the dailies "Dziennik Częstochowski 24 Godziny" (in the column Okienko z wierszem [Poetry window]) and "Dziennik Zachodni", the magazine "Galeria", and the artistic monthly "Mini Galeria". In autumn 1996, she married the electrical technician Szymon Grzegorzewski, who had also authored a volume of poetry. She graduated with a bachelor's degree in pedagogy from the WSP in Częstochowa before acquiring a master's degree in Polish philology. In 1998, she received a creative grant from the Department of Culture from Częstochowa City Council, which enabled her to prepare her first volume of poetry, Wyobraźnia kontrolowana (Controlled imagination), for print. She received another grant from the same organization in 2002. She was co-host alongside Jolanta Śmerciak of the poetry show Noc z Kaliope (Night-time with Calliope), which was broadcast on the Fon radio station. Alongside Renata Zarychta, she initiated the Meneris Literary Club, which between 2000 and 2002 brought together regular participants of the Single Poem Competition (Turniej Jednego Wiersza) organized by the Gaude Mater Centre for the Promotion of Culture. She ran the club's poetry meetings and also praticipated in literary workshops held in libraries, schools and other cultural centres. Between 2000 and 2006, she worked at the Tania Książka bookshop in Częstochowa. She made her debut as a prose writer in 2002 with the piece Prokreator (Procreator), which appeared in the periodical "Aleje 3" (no. 38). She published her short essay Bakałarze, Faeton, C-67, Pryzmaty, Meneris… czyli grupy literackie w Częstochowie (Literal translation: Teachers, Phaeton, C-67, Prisms, Meneris ... or Literary groups in Częstochowa) in the same periodical (2003, no. 43), which also published further reviews and articles relating to local literary life as well as excerpts of her prose works (intermittently until 2010). In 2002, alongside Szymon Grzegorzewski, she founded the Bulion publishing house which, until 2005, published debut volumes of poetry by authors from the region. Together with her husband, she co-edited the literary magazine Bulion between 2003 and 2005, to which she also contributed articles. She also published her poetry and proses pieces in periodicals including "Arkusz" (2002), "Studium" (2003 and 2007), and "Kresy" (2005 and 2008). In mid-2006, she and her family left for the United Kingdom, settling on the Isle of Wight, initially in the village of Wootton Bridge, near Newport, and then from 2007 in the town of Ryde. She also attended (intermittently) an ESOL (English for Speakers of Other Languages) course there. She was a member of the immigrant group Equall that was based in the local youth club. She was a winner of the 2007 Literary Competition organized by the London-based company Polish Books, run by Anna Warren, which resulted in the anthology Na końcu świata napisane. Autoportret współczesnej polskiej emigracji (Written at the Ends of the World: A self-portrait of contemporary Polish migrants; Katowice / Chorzow, 2008). After separating from her husband, she had various jobs including working as a waitress at Ryde McDonald's (2009-11), a hostess at a fast food corporation and as a domestic assistant in Brading. After leaving the Isle of Wight, she lived in East Tilbury, Essex. She remained active as a writer, registering officially as a writer and translator in the UK in 2011. The same year, she made her debut as a translator from English, with a Polish version of Robin Robertson's poem The Flaying of Marsyas. Her Polish translation, Skórowanie Marsjasza według Owidiusza, appeared in the Lodz-based periodical "Arterie" (no. 2). She contributed actively to various periodicals and websites, including the portal "Nieszuflada" (see link; here she posted entries as Viola Greg in 2009/10), while her poems, prose, translations of poetry and interviews with other writers appeared in periodicals including "Fraza” (2006/2007, 2012; also translations of poems in 2014), "Tygiel Kultury" (2008), "Arterie" (2010-11), "Zeszyty Literackie" (2010), "Dyskurs" (2014), "Znak" (2014), "ArtPapier" (2014-15), "Akcent" (2016), "biBLioteka", and "Magazyn Literacki" (online; including in 2016 the prose cycle Wyspa [Island]). From January 2012 to October 2017, she ran the blog Pamięć smieny (Smena's Memory; see link; published as: Anonymous). In 2012, as part of the project Pomiędzy dwoma światami. Poezja i przekład. Between Two Worlds. Poetry and Translation, archival recordings of several of her poems were recorded and put online by the British Library (see link). In 2015, she published the autobiographical prose piece On the River = Boży Stok in the Translation Tuesday column of the British daily "The Guardian" (under the pseudonym Violetta Greg). She won prizes including the Vienna-based Polonia Golden Owl (awarded for her literary work in 2015) and the Prize of the City of Częstochowa for culture in 2017. The same year, she became the first Polish woman to be longlisted for the International Man Booker Prize. She returned to Ryde in 2019, before moving to Hastings in early 2020. She remained separated from her husband, with domestic violence and complications caused by the COVID-19 pandemic meaning that she and her daughter moved into a shelter for women with children in Seaford, East Sussex. In early 2022, she moved into a council house in Lewes. She became a member of the Union of Polish Writers Abroad in 2023. The same year, she was awarded the three-year creative grant from the Royal Literary Fund. She has a son, Mateusz (b. 1997) and a daughter, Julia (b. 2007), from her marriage to Szymon Grzegorzewski. She is in a relationship with the prose writer and cinematographer Maciej Hen.