Borowski, Tadeusz, editor; Marian Bogusz and Jan Lenica, artists.

[POST-WAR AVANT-GARDE – STEINBECK AND SARTRE IN POLAND] Nurt: literatura, nauka, życie [The current: literature, science, life]. Nos. 1–2 (all published).

Warsaw: Robotnicza Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza "Prasa", 1947. Original pictorial wrappers by Marian Bogusz; 80 and 96 pp. Illustrations throughout from drawings and with reproductions of artworks, many full-page, including works by Toyen, Aristide Maillol, Picasso, Strzemiński, Stażewski, and others. Light overall wear and unobtrusive professional repair to wrappers of the first issue; toning due to stock; issue no. 1 with damp stain to first few pages and stamp of a Polish publisher to front wrapper; else about very good; the second issue very good or better. Item #52750

Two issues (all published) of one of the most significant literary and cultural magazines of post-WWII period, edited by the writer, journalist, and key personality of post-war Polish literature, Tadeusz Borowski (1922–1951). The first volume included translations of Sartre, Steinbeck (translation of "The Raid"), and Aragon, with illustrations by the young Polish artists and members of the new Polish avant-garde Jan Lenica (1928–2001) and Marian Bogusz (1920–1960), who also designed the covers of the publication. The second volume includes an extended article on cubism, as well as reproductions of works of Polish avant-garde masters such as Władisław Strzemiński, Henryk Stażewski, and Tadeusz Kantor. The first issue also contains a short gloss about Ernest Hemingway.

Born in Zhytomyr, and raised in Warsaw, Borowski started out as a poet, publishing several poetic cycles clandestinely during WWII. Involved with the leftist underground in Warsaw, he was eventually arrested in 1943, and would go on to survive the Auschwitz and Dachau concentration camps. The experience led him to turn away from poetry, and to publish prose works such as “We Were in Auschwitz” (1946) and “This Way to The Gas Chamber Ladies and Gentlemen” (1948), which would become classics of Polish literature. In the interim he would try his hand as an editor of this monthly literary magazine, which quickly ran into trouble with the censors. Two months into the publication Borowski received a letter from a friend, a literary critic announcing the journal’s demise: “Comrade Z. Pióro was here and said that Nurt had been finally throttled. Before it burst forth. Exactly as I predicted. He told me the reason was the contents of the issue: Sartre, Koestler, Steinbeck. Evidently not so much young literature on the attack, as old Trotskyites” (See T. Drewnowski ed. Postal Indiscretions: The Correspondence of Tadeusz Borowski, p. 181). The wrapper designer, Marian Bogusz would go on to work with the painter and photographer Zbigniew Dłubak to found Grupa 55 which would position itself against the aesthetics of Socialist Realism, paving the way for the Polish Neo-Avant Garde.

As of May 2025, no copies located outside of Poland via KVK, OCLC.

Price: €2,500.00

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