Polish Complex

Tadeusz Konwicki was born on June 22, 1926 in Nowa Wilejka, Wilenskie, Poland. He was raised by extended family because his father died when he was three years old and his mother was persistently ailing. With the outbreak of World War II, he was forced to leave high school when the Nazis forbade Poles to attend school. He finished his class work clandestinely. He was conscripted into a Nazi labor force and worked clearing a forest before escaping and joining the resistance movement.

After the war, he studied in Krakow and then in Warsaw but never graduated from college. He became a reporter and critic, writing mainly about film, and began to write short stories and novels. His novels included The Hole in the Sky, The Dreambook of Our Time, The Polish Complex, and A Minor Apocalypse, which is required reading for all Polish high school students. He was also a filmmaker. His film Last Day of Summer won the Grand Prix at the International Festival of Documentary and Short Feature Films in Venice. He died on January 7, 2015 at the age of 88.

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