Wisława Szymborska

Wisława Szymborska (born July 2, 1923, Bnin [now part of Kórnik], Poland—died February 1, 2012, Kraków) was a Polish poet whose intelligent and empathic explorations of philosophical, moral, and ethical issues won her the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996. Szymborska’s father was the steward on a count’s family estate. When she was eight, the family moved to Kraków, and she attended high school there. Between 1945 and 1948 she studied literature and sociology at...