PARANDOWSKI, JAN

born May 11, 1895, Lemberg, Austria-Hungary died Sept. 26, 1978, Warsaw Polish writer, essayist, and translator. He graduated from the classical gimnazjum of Lww and, together with the entire Polish elite, was transported to Russia when the tsarist army occupied eastern Galicia at the beginning of World War I. Returning home after the Russian Revolution, he completed his education in 1923 at the University of Lww, where he read classical philology and archaeology. Shortly afterwards he visited France, Italy, and Greece. He published a dozen books, ranging from historical novels to travelogues, that had Greek or Italian themes or subject matter. One notable exception was a novel, Niebo w plomieniach (1936; Heaven in Flames), detailing the experiences of a young man who undergoes a religious crisis. From 1933 Parandowski was chairman of the Polish PEN writers' organization and vice president of the International PEN (from 1962).