Modest, gentle and shy. Lady of Polish literature. Wisława Szymborska, Noble Prize Winner, died yesterday at the age of 89. Michał Rusinek,  Ms. Wisława Szyborska's secretary, told TVN 24 that the poet died at home. She calmly passed away in a sleep.
 
Ms. Wisława Szymborska was famous for her consistent language, witty observations, empathy, great sense of humour and unconventional hobbies. Her secretary described her as eternally young. "It was impossible to call her an elderly lady," - he once said. That youthful freshness and cognitive curiosity was always present in her poems. "In the language of poetry" – she concluded her Noble Prize lecture – "where every word is weighed, nothing is usual or normal. Not a single stone and not a single cloud above it. Not a single day and not a single night after it. And above all, not a single existence, not anyone's existence in this world".*

Soon after winning the Noble Prize, Ms. Szymborska presented the Nobel Prize Medal to the Jagiellonian Univeristy Museum in Collegium Maius. Though she never completed her studies at the univeristy, she always stressed her respect for the Jagiellonian University which shaped the intellectual atmosphere of Kraków and influenced many people she admired and knew very well.    

She was a bit of recluse who always led a very private life. Hence, her friends referred to the Noble Prize announcement in 1996 as the "Stockholm tragedy". Since a few years the poet kept an even lower profile.  The meeting promoting her book "Here", which took place in Kraków in 2009, was one of the last meetings with her readers. She was suffering from a lung cancer. In November she came through a serious operation. Just before her death she was transported back to her own flat.


"Cat in an Empty Apartment," by Wisława Szymborska.

Translation made by Dr. Cavanagh and Mr. Baranczak:


Die — You can't do that to a cat.
Since what can a cat do
in an empty apartment?
Climb the walls?
Rub up against the furniture?
Nothing seems different here,
but nothing is the same.
Nothing has been moved,
but there's more space.
And at nighttime no lamps are lit.
Footsteps on the staircase,
but they're new ones.
The hand that puts fish on the saucer
has changed, too.
Something doesn't start
at its usual time.
Something doesn't happen
as it should. Someone was always, always here,
then suddenly disappeared
and stubbornly stays disappeared.

*"Wislawa Szymborska - Nobel Lecture". Nobelprize.org. 2 Feb 2012 http://www.nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/literature/laureates/1996/szymborska-lecture.html