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A Life in Letters


 Anna Frajlich's poetry was shaped by the shock of her forced emigration from Poland in 1969. This wound, which in time would become a creative nucleus, is amply documented in her correspondence to various recipients over the entire span of her life. Exile made Frajlich into a lifelong epistolarian, thus allowing the reader a rare glimpse into her everyday life, her professional relationships, her friendships, and the parallel progress of her scholarship and her poetry. Two sets of her correspondence stand out: her parents, because of the intensity and closeness of the letters between 1969 and 1971, and Stefania Kossowska, the editor of the London-based Wiadomości Literackie, because of the close friendship between the two women from 1973 until Kossowska's death in 2003. Both her parents and Kossowska gave Frajlich indispensable nurturing as a person and writer until she in turn became the nurturing one. The article is organized chronologically; a third section is devoted to Frajlich's use of her correspondence with several émigré Polish authors in order to write tributes that represent an important contribution to the history of émigré literature as well as to Frajlich's life. Her correspondence shows her attention to detail and her sensitivity to beauty, and her love for her correspondents. The letters narrate the building of her career, from her first publications in Poland to her doctoral studies and to the growing recognition of her work in the United States and in Poland.