 | This biography of a living person includes a list of references, related reading or external links, but its sources remain unclear because it lacks inline citations .(February 2008) |
Manuela Gretkowska (6 October 1964) is a Polish writer, screenwriter, feminist and politician. She is the foundress of the Feminist Initiative.
Manuela Gretkowska was born in Łódź and studied philosophy at Jagiellonian University in Kraków. In 1988, she left Poland to live in Paris, where she studied anthropology at the École des hautes études en sciences sociales. In the early 1990s, she returned to her country, where she was deputy editor-in-chief and then literary director at Elle . She wrote columns for Elle, Cosmopolitan , Wprost , Polityka , Machina , and Cogito .
Gretkowska's literary debut was the novel We Are Immigrants Here (My zdies' emigranty) (1991), in which she described the experiences of the young generation leaving Poland. The work of the young artist was favorably reviewed by Czesław Miłosz, whose preface appeared in the first edition. Gretkowska's next three books described the life of a modern artistic-intellectual bohemian living in France: Paris Tarot (1993), Metaphysical Cabaret (1994), and Textbook for people. Skull: The First and Last Volume (1996) connects gnosis, kabbala, the character of Mary Magdalene and the skull motif in global culture. In this period, the writer earned the title of "scandalist" and "postmodernist." Manuela Gretkowski's prose eschewed grandiose language, more similar to the ease and austerity of the essay. In 1996, Gretkowska wrote a screenplay for the Andrzej Żuławski film Szamanka (She-Shaman).
In 1997, Gretkowska moved to Sweden, where she published several collected stories in the book Namiętnik (The Passionate One) (1998), notes from her world travels in Światowidz (World-View) (1998), and her columns, under the collective title Silikon (Silicon) (2000). She also co-wrote the screenplay for the first season of the TV series Miasteczko (Small Town) (2000).
Gretkowska's newest work is more personal, almost intimate prose. Polka (Polish woman) (2001) was the writer's pregnancy journal, while Europejka (European Woman) (2004) presents a humorous view of a changing Poland through the eyes of Gretkowska the intellectual. In 2003 the author, together with her partner Piotr Pietucha wrote Scenes from Extramarital Life. Three years later, Gretkowska wrote a column for the monthly magazine Success that was highly critical of the Kaczyński brothers (twins who at the time held the positions of Poland's President and Prime Minister). The issue hit stands with this text cut out (literally) of every copy.
She lives in Ustanow (near Warsaw) with her daughter Pola and the writer and psychotherapist Piotr Pietucha.
In 2007, Gretkowska transformed the social movement "Poland is a Woman" into a new Political party - the Women's Party (Partia Kobiet), from which she ran a failed campaign in the Polish and European parliaments. In October 2007, after the party's defeat in the parliamentary elections, she resigned the party's leadership but remains an "honorary leader".
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Maria Wisława Anna Szymborska was a Polish poet, essayist, translator, and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Prowent, she resided in Kraków until the end of her life. In Poland, Szymborska's books have reached sales rivaling prominent prose authors', though she wrote in a poem, "Some Like Poetry", that "perhaps" two in a thousand people like poetry.
Cabaret is a form of theatrical entertainment featuring music, song, dance, recitation, or drama. The performance venue might be a pub, a casino, a hotel, a restaurant, or a nightclub with a stage for performances. The audience, often dining or drinking, does not typically dance but usually sits at tables. Performances are usually introduced by a master of ceremonies or MC. The entertainment, as done by an ensemble of actors and according to its European origins, is often oriented towards adult audiences and of a clearly underground nature. In the United States, striptease, burlesque, drag shows, or a solo vocalist with a pianist, as well as the venues which offer this entertainment, are often advertised as cabarets.
Darcy Megan Stanger, better known by the pen name Dame Darcy is an alternative cartoonist, fine artist, musician, cabaret performer, and animator/filmmaker. Her "Neo-Victorian" comic book series Meat Cake was published by Fantagraphics Books from 1993–2008. The Meat Cake Bible compilation was released in June 2016 and nominated for The Eisner Award July 2017. Vegan Love: Dating and Partnering for the Cruelty-Free Gal, with Fashion, Makeup & Wedding Tips, written by Maya Gottfried and illustrated by Dame Darcy, was the Silver Medalist winners of the Independent Publisher Book Awards in 2018. Her self-published Tarot decks went viral world wide in 2012 with a second wave in 2018 for the Dame Darcy Mermaid Tarot Gold Edition deck and Queen Alice Tarot deck and were listed as Etsy Bestsellers in 2018. Dame Darcy's autobiographical graphic novel, Hi Jax & Hi Jinx , was published by Feral House in 2019
Maria Konopnicka was a Polish poet, novelist, children's writer, translator, journalist, critic, and activist for women's rights and for Polish independence. She used pseudonyms, including Jan Sawa. She was one of the most important poets of Poland's Positivist period.
Rachel Grace Pollack is an American science fiction author, comic book writer, and expert on divinatory tarot. She is involved in the women's spirituality movement.
Halina Poświatowska was a Polish poet and writer, one of the most important figures in modern/contemporary Polish literature.
The Piwnica pod Baranami is a Polish literary cabaret located in Kraków, Poland. For over thirty years, in the People's Republic of Poland, Piwnica pod Baranami served as the most renowned political cabaret in the country, until the end of the communist era. Created by Piotr Skrzynecki in 1956, the cabaret continues its activities, contrary to rumours that it has been closed after the death of its founder in 1997. It resides at its original location in the medieval Old Town district, at the Main Market Square.
Maria Pawlikowska-Jasnorzewska, née Kossak, was a prolific Polish poet known as the Polish Sappho and "queen of lyrical poetry" during Poland's interwar period. She was also a dramatist.
Anna Maria Cienciala was a Polish-American historian and author. She specialized in modern Polish and Russian history. Graduating with a history doctorate in 1962, she taught at two Canadian universities for a few years before joining the history faculty at the University of Kansas in 1965. She retired in 2002.
Szamanka is a Polish-French-Swiss film, released in 1996, directed by Andrzej Żuławski and adapted from a screenplay by Manuela Gretkowska. The film, which was controversial upon its release in Poland, is about the obsessive relationship between an anthropology professor and a strange young woman only known as the "Italian". The title is the feminine form of the word "shaman" in Polish.
Iulia Hasdeu was a Romanian poet, the daughter of writer and philologist Bogdan Petriceicu Hasdeu. From a very young age, Hasdeu wrote poems and prose in both Romanian and French, taught herself foreign languages and studied piano and opera singing. She was the first Romanian woman to study at La Sorbonne University in Paris.
Deanna "D. J." Conway was a non-fiction author of books in the field of magic, Wicca, Druidism, shamanism, metaphysics and the occult, and the author of three fantasy novels. Born in Hood River, Oregon to a family of Irish, North Germanic, and Native North American descent, she studied the occult and Pagan religion for over thirty years. In 1998 she was voted Best Wiccan and New Age author by Silver Chalice, a Neo-Pagan magazine. She was an ordained minister in two New Age churches and holder of a Doctor of Divinity degree. Several of her stories were published in magazines, such as the science fantasy publication Encounters, and she was interviewed in magazines and appeared on such television shows as Journey with Brenda Roberts. She also designed Tarot decks, in collaboration with fellow author Sirona Knight and illustrator Lisa Hunt.
Jacques Rossi was a Polish-French writer and polyglot. Rossi was best known for his books on the Gulag.
Magdalena Cielecka is a Polish film and theatre actress.
Cerridwen Fallingstar, is an American Wiccan priestess, shamanic witch, and author. Since the late 1970s she has written, taught, and lectured about magic, ritual, and metaphysics, and is considered a leading authority on pagan witchcraft.
Eden Gray, was the professional name of Priscilla Pardridge, an American actress, and writer on the esoteric meanings of tarot cards and their use in fortune-telling.
Małgorzata Szumowska is a Polish film director, screenwriter and producer, born in Kraków.
Piotr Cezary Skrzynecki was a Polish choreographer, director and cabaret impresario, known for his involvement with the cabaret Piwnica pod Baranami, of which he was the founder.
Irena Krzywickanée Goldberg was a Polish feminist, writer, translator and activist for women's rights, who promoted sexual education, contraception and planned parenthood.
Maria Dulębianka was a Polish artist and activist, notable for promoting women’s suffrage and higher education.
