is a poet, short-story writer and essayist. He emigrated to Paris in 1982, returning to Cracow twenty years later. He is regarded as one of today’s greatest living poets. With his lucid and tragic consciousness of the existential tension between individual and politics, between art and modern entertainment, he entrances readers throughout the world. Among his poetry books that have appeared in English translation are Tremor, selected poems (1985), Canvas (1991) and Mysticism for Beginners (1997). The following essay collections have been translated: Solidarity, solitude (1990), Another Beauty (2000) and A Defense of Ardor (2002). In 1998 Zagajewski gave the Nexus lecture, entitled ‘The shabby and the sublime’.