Jerzy Kierst

Jerzy Kierst was a prose writer and poet, theater critic, and translator. Prior to World War II, he studied Polish philology in Warszawa and started writing poetry. During the war he worked together with actors as an underground teacher, which established his connection with the theater. In 1947 he published Flame over the Head, his first collection of poems. Kierst then worked as a lecturer at drama schools and as an editor and director for radio and television. He was co-founder of the Polish Radio Theater and head of the literary editorial staff of Polish Radio.

After being censored during the Stalinist period, Kierst turned to writing poetry and books for children, for which he became particularly famous, especially after one of his books was introduced as school reading. In addition, however, Kierst continued to write plays and additionally worked as a translator from Italian. The mountains of the Tatras play an important role in many of his works. In 1952, his collection of “Olympic poems”, titled Herakles zawsze zwycięski, was published in Warszawa. The volume of 63 pages was illustrated by graphic artist Jan Miklaszewski (1907-1982).