Zdzisław Smektała graduated in screenwriting from the Leon Schiller National Film, Television and Theatre School in Łódź, Poland’s most famous university of its kind worldwide. His press columns from the 1980s and 1990s, published in „Gazeta Robotnicza” as part of the „Jazz dla mass” series, explored social, cultural and political issues important to the region and the country. As political changes progressed in 1989—including the departure of censorship to the proverbial dustbin of history—these columns became even more distinctive and uncompromising. Smektała had no problem with the self-censorship acquired and deeply absorbed by many of his contemporary writers.

His literary work is equally uncompromising, at times evoking the atmosphere of Charles Bukowski’s prose. To date, Zdzisław Smektała has published: „Krzywe ryło” (1982), „Boczne bóstwa” (1982), „Chciwy żywot grajka” (1986), „Chcica: poemat romantyczny” (first edition in samizdat in 1988, second edition in 2006), „Liszaj” (1988), „Pic” (1988), „Jazz baba riba…” (1998), „Dziennik: [Jazz dla mass]” (2000), „Lucille” (2005).

PlakatPlakat • MBP w Zgorzelcu

Master Smektała has agreed to lead an open meeting and workshop on 11 March at the Municipal Senior Citizens’ Club (13 Mickiewicza Street, 4:00 p.m.). The meeting is connected with a literary competition for memories of our city, organised as part of the Municipal Public Library’s „70 lat Zgorzelca” project.

On 21 March in Goerlitz (Ständehaus – State House, 31 Dr Kahlbaum–Allee, 6:00–7:30 p.m.), together with historian Gerassimosem Alexatosem, he will talk about Greeks in Zgorzelec; on the right bank of the Nysa, at the Przy Jakubie restaurant in Zgorzelec (entrance from Nowomiejska Street, 8:30–10:00 p.m.), Zdzisław Smektała and Karl-Dieter Tietz will read excerpts from the novels „Chciwy żywot grajka” and „Liszaj”. These events will take place as part of the 7th Silesian Literary Evening.

We invite everyone who knows Zdzisław Smektała, as well as those who should get to know him—young residents of Zgorzelec—to these meetings.

Marek Żytomirski/Miejska Biblioteka Publiczna/ii