Introduction (Zofia Beszczynska)

Zofia Beszczynka is a poet, author of fantasy tales for adults and children and book reviewer working for literary magazines.

She is an editor of children's literature critic magazine "Nowe Książki" ("New books") and "Guliwer", and collaborates with Polish Radio.

Member of Association of Polish Writers (SPP) and Polish IBBY Section. Scholar of Children’s Library in Munich (Germany, 1996) and Baltic Centre for Writers and Translators in Visby (Sweden, 2003).

Her poetry has been published in many literary reviews for children and adults, anthologies and school textbooks ; some of them translated into foreign languages (among others: English, German, Lithuanian, Macedonian, Serbo-Croatian, Spanish). She took part in poetry festivals in Sarajevo, Bosnia and Herzegovina (1998) and Struga, Macedonia (2002, 2003), Havana, Cuba (2007), and Calicut, India (2007).

Her "Tea Cat" (1999) was the the "Book of the Year 1999" (Polish IBBY Section) and was granted a honourable mention in the Child’s World Foundation Bestseller competition 1999 ;
her "Tales of Things and and Non-things" (2002) was the the "Book of the Year 2002" and a honourable mention of the "Bestseller of the Year 2002" ;
her "Helter-Skelter Down the Hill" (2005) was the "Book of the Summer" (honourable mention in the "Library Raczyński" competition), the "Book of the Year 2005" (honourable mention of the Polish IBBY Section competition), the "White Ravens 2006" (Award of International Youth Library, Muenchen), and the "White Ravens 2006" at Bologna Children's Book Fair.

Poems in English on this web site :

Magic Places (extracts)
The island of lights (extracts)

Photo : Boguslaw Ulicki.