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Anna Frajlich (born March 10, 1942, Katta Taldyk, Osh Region, Kyrgyzstan), known also as Anna Frajlich-Zając, is a Polish-American poet and a Senior Lecturer Emerita at the Department of Slavic Languages and Associate Faculty Member, Harriman Institute at Columbia University in New York City, where she taught Polish language and literature for over three decades.

Biography:
Anna Frajlich was born to a Polish-Jewish family. The family was separated in 1941. The father, Psachie Frajlich, a technician, found himself in Lysva, in Perm Region, in USSR, while her mother, Amalia, ended up in Kyrgyzstan where Anna was born. The family was able to reunite in Lysva in 1943. After the end of the war of World War II, in 1946, the family returned to Poland and settled in Szczecin.

Anna Frajlich graduated from the University of Warsaw with the Master's degree in Polish literature. After the university she worked in the publications for visually impaired people. In 1968-1969, the Communist government in Poland engaged in an anti-Semitic campaign that spurred the last significant emigration wave of Polish Jews from the country. Frajlich, together with her husband, engineer Władysław Zając, and son, emigrated to the United States in 1969.

Her first teaching job in the US was at SUNY Stony Brook where she taught Polish language. In 1972-76 she worked at the New York Blood Center in the Department of Epidemiology. At that time she started contributing to the Polish émigré press in the United States and Europe. She was also a freelance contributor to the Radio Free Europe, Polish Section. Anna Frajlich was the first Polish journalist to interview Czesław Miłosz after he became the 1980 Nobel Prize winner in Literature.

She started writing and publishing her poetry in 1958 in weekly literary supplements in Warsaw, Szczecin and Poznań. Her first book of poetry "Aby wiatr namalować/To paint the wind" was published in 1976 in England.

Her poetry in translation appeared in the USA in journals "Mr. Cogito", "Artful Dodge", "Poet Lore", "Terra Poetica" and others since early 1980s.

Frajlich studied at the Slavic Department of the New York University where she was awarded a PhD in Russian literature in 1991.

In 1982 she started teaching Polish language and then literature at the Columbia University where she worked until her retirement in 2016.

In 2007, she was named an Honorary Ambassador of Szczecin (Ambasador Szczecina).

She has published numerous books of poetry, essays and articles. In 2022, the entire issue of the journal "The Polish Review" (2022, vol. 67, issue 1) was dedicated to Anna Frajlich.

Frajlich and her family currently live in New York City.

Selected books of poetry in Polish

 * Aby wiatr namalować. London, 1976.
 * Tylko ziemia. London, 1979.
 * Indian Summer. Albany, NY, 1982.
 * Który las. London, 1986.
 * Ogrodem i ogrodzeniem. Warszawa, 1993.
 * Jeszcze w drodze : wybór wierszy. Warszawa, 1994.
 * W słońcu listopada. Kraków, 2000.
 * Znów szuka mnie wiatr. Warszawa, 2001.
 * Łodzią jest i jest przystanią. Szczecin, 2013.
 * Aby wiatr namalować ; Tylko ziemia. Szczecin, 2016.
 * Indian Summer ; Który las. Szczecin, 2018.
 * W pośpiechu rzeka płynie. Szczecin, 2020.
 * Wiersze zebrane. t. 1, Przeszczep. Toronto, Szczecin, 2022.
 * Wiersze zebrane. t. 2, Powroty. Toronto, Szczecin, 2022.

Scholarly books

 * Legacy of Ancient Rome in the Russian Silver Age. Amsterdam, New York, 2007.

Books edited by Frajlich

 * Between Lvov, New York and Ulysses' Ithaca: Józef Wittlin -- poet, essayist, novelist. Toruń, Poland, 2001.

Selected critical studies and reviews








Awards:

 * Kościelski Foundation (Geneva) Literary Award, 1981


 * Knight’s Cross of Order of Merit, 2002


 * W. & N. Turzanski Foundation (Toronto) Literary Prize, 2003
 * Honorary Ambassador of Szczecin (Ambasador Szczecina)


 * Union of Polish Writers in Exile (London) Literature Prize, 2015


 * Wybitny Polak (Distinguished Pole in the United States), 2017


 * Jubilee Medal of the John Paul II Catholic University of Lublin, Poland, 2020


 * Szczecin University Medal, Poland, 2020


 * The Susanne Lotarski Distinguished Achievement Award, 2020


 * The Oscar Halecki Prize, 2021


 * Wschodnia Fundacja Kultury Akcent, Lublin, Poland, 2022

External links:
Anna Frajlich's website (English) Anna Frajlich's page on the EPIC pages, Emeritus Professors of Columbia (English) Frajlich's profile on Culture.pl (English)