Hlasko, Marek

writer

Born: 14.01.1934 in Warsaw (Poland)

died: 14.06.1969 in Wiesbaden

Hlasko grew up in Warsaw. His childhood was shaped by the Second World War. His parents divorced in 1937. His father died in 1939. After the suppression of the Warsaw Uprising and the almost complete destruction of the city in 1944, his mother fled with him to southern Poland and finally to Bialystok.

After the end of the Second World War, mother and son moved to Wrocław, where Marek Hlasko finished school. In 1949, he began training in Warsaw, but dropped out and moved back to Wroclaw. He worked full-time as a truck driver, but came into contact with writers and journalists as a working-class correspondent for a Polish daily newspaper. In 1953, he received a scholarship from the Polish Writers' Association. Marek Hlasko's debut work was published in 1954. This was followed by various literary texts and his first collection of stories (Pierwszy krok w chmurach (The First Step in the Clouds)), which made him famous in Poland.

Some of his works, such as "The Eighth Day of the Week", were made into films. While shooting the film, he met the German actress Sonja Ziemann and married her shortly afterwards. In 1958, he was awarded the Polish Publishers' Prize. Because of his socially critical stance, Poland refused him entry after an extended stay in Paris in 1958. He was granted asylum in West Berlin, lived briefly in Israel, then commuted between Switzerland, Germany, France, Spain and Italy before moving to Los Angeles in 1966. He continued to publish in Polish with various exile publishers. Another film project failed. After divorcing Ziemann, Hlasko moved back to Israel and hoped to realize further film projects. In 1969, he came to Wiesbaden to meet with a producer. Marek Hlasko died on June 14, 1969 as a result of an overdose of sleeping pills. His grave is in Wiesbaden's Südfriedhof cemetery.