Wladyslaw Stanislaw Reymont
(1867 - 1925)


Polish writer and novelist who was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1924.
Reymont never completed his schooling but was at various times in his youth a shop apprentice, a lay brother in a monastery, a railway official, and an actor. His early writing includes Ziemia obiecana (1899; "The Promised Land"), a story set in the rapidly expanding industrial town of Lodz and depicting the lives and psychology of the owners of the textile mills there. His short stories and novels, including Spotkanie (1897; "The Meeting") and Komediantka (1896; "The Comedienne"), are written in a naturalistic, factual style with short sentences. The novel Chlopi, 4 vol. (1904-09; The Peasants) is a chronicle of peasant life during the four seasons of a year. Written almost entirely in peasant dialect, it has been translated into many languages and won for Reymont the Nobel Prize. His later work was less expressive but reflected the variety of his interests, including his view of the spiritualist movement in Wampir (1911) and his interpretation of Polish political and social life at the close of the 18th century in Rok 1794, 3 vol. (1913-18; "The Year 1794").

Jerzy R. Krzyzanowski, Wladyslaw Stanislaw Reymont (1972), provides an introduction to Reymont's life and works.