Zadomowieni w literaturze
Settled in Literature

On Reading Writers

Summary/Abstract: The paper demonstrates the way in which the contemporary writer is shaped by literature, especially by other writers. While reading becomes a mode of anchoring in the world, a recurring reading turns out to be not only a place of forming the writer’s identity, but also of the themes which figure their biography and creativity. The process of creation, the artist’s maturation and special importance of art for such writers as Jerzy Pilch, Janusz Anderman, Zbigniew Mentzel, Stefan Chwin or Andrzej Stasiuk are fundamentals of spiritual life. What emerges from reading pieces by the mentioned men of letters is the figure of the writer who inhabits the story. For them literature has become a way of life, not only in financial or professional aspect. They need literature in its most fundamental meaning to construct their own “I”. The world of books is not an alternative to everyday realty but it allows to subjugate it and to make it bearable.

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