WRITER

Wisława Szymborska

1923 - 2012

Photo of Wisława Szymborska

Icon of person Wisława Szymborska

Maria Wisława Anna Szymborska (Polish: [viˈswava ʂɨmˈbɔrska]; 2 July 1923 – 1 February 2012) was a Polish poet, essayist, translator, and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Prowent (now part of Kórnik in west-central Poland), she resided in Kraków until the end of her life. Read more on Wikipedia

Since 2007, the English Wikipedia page of Wisława Szymborska has received more than 709,433 page views. Her biography is available in 99 different languages on Wikipedia (up from 95 in 2019). Wisława Szymborska is the 174th most popular writer (up from 209th in 2019), the 22nd most popular biography from Poland (up from 27th in 2019) and the 3rd most popular Polish Writer.

Wisława Szymborska is a Polish poet and essayist. She is most famous for her poem "Nothing Twice" which won the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature.

Memorability Metrics

  • 710k

    Page Views (PV)

  • 73.31

    Historical Popularity Index (HPI)

  • 99

    Languages Editions (L)

  • 9.38

    Effective Languages (L*)

  • 4.84

    Coefficient of Variation (CV)

Notable Works

Poems
1964
Koniec i początek
1993
Chwila =
2002
Miracle Fair
Poetry
"Miracle Fair is Szymborska at her very best."—Harvard Book Review Winner of the Heldt Prize for Translation. A new translation of the Nobel Prize-winning Polish poet, with an introduction by Czeslaw Milosz. This long-awaited volume samples the full range of Wislawa Szymborska's major themes: the ironies of love, the wonders of nature's beauty, and the illusory character of art. Szymborska's voice emerges as that of a gentle subversive, self-deprecating in its wit, yet graced with a gift for coaxing the extraordinary out of the ordinary.
20023 / 5
View with a grain of sand
Poetry
A collection by the Nobel Prize winner reflects on the wonders of life in poems featuring a sister's postcard, the discovery of a new star, the ruins of Greece, and a bodybuilding contest
19954 / 5
Lektury nadobowiązkowe
1992

Among WRITERS

Among writers, Wisława Szymborska ranks 174 out of 7,302. Before her are Pindar, Yasunari Kawabata, Orhan Pamuk, Karel Čapek, Pliny the Younger, and François-René de Chateaubriand. After her are Taras Shevchenko, Luigi Pirandello, Svetlana Alexievich, J. D. Salinger, Osamu Dazai, and André Breton.

Most Popular Writers in Wikipedia

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous

Contemporaries

Among people born in 1923, Wisława Szymborska ranks 7. Before her are Henry Kissinger, Maria Callas, Shimon Peres, Lee Kuan Yew, Heydar Aliyev, and Idi Amin. After her are Rainier III, Prince of Monaco, Rocky Marciano, Charlton Heston, Italo Calvino, Wojciech Jaruzelski, and Peter II of Yugoslavia. Among people deceased in 2012, Wisława Szymborska ranks 4. Before her are Neil Armstrong, Oscar Niemeyer, and Norodom Sihanouk. After her are Ray Bradbury, Whitney Houston, Yitzhak Shamir, Griselda Blanco, Ahmed Ben Bella, Rita Levi-Montalcini, Tony Scott, and Michael Clarke Duncan.

Others Born in 1923

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous

Others Deceased in 2012

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous

In Poland

Among people born in Poland, Wisława Szymborska ranks 22 out of 1,694. Before her are Johann Gottfried Herder (1744), Marie Leszczyńska (1703), Daniel Gabriel Fahrenheit (1686), Władysław Szpilman (1911), Wernher von Braun (1912), and Erich Ludendorff (1865). After her are Janusz Korczak (1878), Lech Kaczyński (1949), Fedor von Bock (1880), Władysław IV Vasa (1595), Eric of Pomerania (1381), and Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902).

Others born in Poland

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous

Among WRITERS In Poland

Among writers born in Poland, Wisława Szymborska ranks 3. Before her are Günter Grass (1927), and Adam Mickiewicz (1798). After her are Janusz Korczak (1878), Isaac Bashevis Singer (1902), Henryk Sienkiewicz (1846), Gerhart Hauptmann (1862), Andrzej Sapkowski (1948), Władysław Reymont (1867), Osip Mandelstam (1891), Olga Tokarczuk (1962), and Alfred Döblin (1878).

Polish born Writers

Go to all Rankings
Load previousLoad previous