Stefan Żeromski (14 October 1864 – 20 November 1925) was a Polish novelist and dramatist belonging to the Young Poland movement at the turn of the 20th century. He was called the "conscience of Polish literature". He also wrote under the pen names Maurycy Zych, Józef Katerla, and Stefan Iksmoreż. He was nominated four times for the Nobel Prize in Literature.

Life

Stefan Żeromski was born on 14 October 1864 at Strawczyn, near Kielce. On 2 September 1892, he married a widow, Oktawia Rodkiewicz, née Radziwiłłowicz, whom he had met at a spa in Nałęczów, co-owned by her stepfather. One of the witnesses at the wedding was the novelist Bolesław Prus, an admirer of Oktawia's who had not been in favor of the marriage. The newlyweds moved to Switzerland, where Żeromski worked from 1892 to 1896 as a librarian at the Polish National Museum in Rapperswil. At Oktawia's request Prus, though no admirer of Żeromski's writings, helped the struggling couple as much as he could. In 1913 Żeromski started a new family with the painter Anna Zawadzka, whom he had met in 1908; they had a daughter, Monika. In 1924, in recognition of Żeromski's achievements, President Stanisław Wojciechowski gave him a three-room apartment on the second floor of Warsaw's Royal Castle. In the same year, Żeromski was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in literature. He died on 20 November 1925 in Warsaw.

Selected works

Żeromski's works have been translated into several languages. They have been translated into Croatian by a member of the Croatian Academy, Stjepan Musulin.

Films

Several of Żeromski's novels have been filmed, by Walerian Borowczyk (Dzieje grzechu, "A Story of Sin"), Andrzej Wajda (Popioły, "Ashes"), and Filip Bajon (Przedwiośnie, "The Spring to Come"). In 2000, The Labors of Sisyphus (Syzyfowe prace), was adapted into a film of the same name by Paweł Komorowski.