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Product Description
This work tells the story of Aleksander Wat, from his Polish-Jewish upbringing, his participation in the literary avant-garde in the 1920s, through to his work as editor of a Communist journal before World War II, his conversion to democracy, and his emigration to the West in 1959.
Amazon.com Review
The poet Aleksander Wat proved that contradictions could survive within one lifetime. Born in Warsaw in 1900 to orthodox Jews, he sought liberal, artistic circles and learned the rituals and ideology of Roman Catholicism. And though he lived most of his life as a Communist, his experiences in the Soviet Union turned him into a patriot who elected to risk his life rather than accept a Soviet passport. With this biography, Tomas Venclova, a professor of Russian and East European studies at Yale, recounts the life of Wat, whose defiance, knowledge of the world beyond the Soviet Union, and ability to express his sorrows inspired many Eastern-European survivors of WWII.
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