Toruń – city of literature

To understand how much Toruń loves literature, all you need to do is learn about the works of Zbigniew Herbert. He was the master and closely connected to Toruń.Born October 29th 1924 in Lwów he was an influential Polish poet, essayist, drama writer, author of plays, and moralist. A member of the Polish resistance movement – Home Army (AK) during World War II, he is one of the best known and the most translated post-war Polish writers. He was first published in 1950; his writing debut was a volume of verse String of light and it was published in 1956. One of Herbert’s most valuable works is a cycle of writings about Pan Cogito (Mr. Cogito), a character that is very modern but still sticks to the European cultural tradition. He was a distant relative of the 17th century poet George Herbert.

Herbert was a bachelor of the Order of the White Eagle and was educated as an economist and lawyer. In the 1980s Herbert was the main poet of the Polish opposition. Starting in 1986, he lived in Paris, where he cooperated with the journal Zeszyty Literackie. He came back to Poland in 1992. On 1 July 2007 the Polish Government decided that 2008 would be the Year of Zbigniew Herbert.

Hi studied Law at the Nicolaus Copernicus University in Toruń, where he received a Master of Law title. In the same year he was carried on the list on the second year of Philosophy at NCU in Toruń, where he was inter alia a student of his later master, Henryk Elzenberg. In 1949 Herbert moved to Toruń for some time and worked in the District Museum and in primary school as a teacher.