Wioletta Grzegorzewska, or Wioletta Greg (1974) is a Polish poet and writer nominated for The Man Booker Prize.[1]
Life
Wioletta born in a small village Rzeniszów in Jurassic Highland in Poland. In 2006, she left her country and moved to the Isle of Wight. She spent there ten years in Ryde. She lives now in Lewes.
Works
Between 1998 – 2012 she published several poetry volumes, novels as well as a novella Swallowing Mercury,[2] in which she's covering her childhood and the experience of growing up in Communist Poland.
Senior editor Max Porter from Portobello Books said:
Swallowing Mercury[3] is an enchanting and intriguing book. Wioletta Greg is a poet and every line of this haunting autobiographical novella has its own weird, beautiful atmosphere. It reminded me of Evie Wyld, Ludmila Petrushevskaya and Herta Muller."[4]
Her poetry book Finite Formulae & Theories of Chance has been shortlisted for the 2015 Griffin Poetry Prize.[9] "Finite Formulae & Theories of Chance shortlisted for the Griffin Poetry Prize!"]. The judges said:
"These poems retain the force of first experience and, equally, a collection of history’s remains. Greg’s thoughts include the catastrophe of the 20th century whose marks still wobble before her eyes, and the experience of living in post-Communist Poland. This stunning collection shows us (mostly through the eyes and memories of childhood) a world of objects transported across years. ‘Tossing satin bulbs into wicker baskets,’ the child poet is at ease with the earth and the hardy objects made from it. Greg grants us the privilege of seeing what she saw before she saw more."[10]
In 2012 an Arts Council-funded audio recording project of the British Library, Between Two Worlds: Poetry and Translation, recorded her poetry.[11] Her poems have been translated into English, Italian, German,[12]Catalan,[13] Serbian, Spanish, and Welsh.
