Henryk Sienkiewicz: Polish Literary Lion (1846-1916)

"... that half-forgotten Pole had the answer all the time. To uplift man's heart; the same for all of us...

We all write for this one purpose." - William Faulkner

Henryk Adam Aleksander Pius Sienkieiwcz was born on May 5, 1846 in Wola Okrzejska, Congress Poland. He was a journalist and travel writer before gaining fame as a novelist and short fiction writer. Sienkiewicz often focused on tales of Poland's distant past which allowed him to circumvent the attention of censors in partitioned Poland. In 1905, he was the first Polish writer to win the Nobel Prize in Literature. His "outstanding merits as an epic writer" were cited by the Swedish Academy. In his final years, he worked tirelessly on committees for the Polish community abroad. Sienkiewicz died in Vevey, Switzerland on November 15, 1916. His remains are buried in St. John's Cathedral in Warsaw. The Polish Senate voted to declare 2016 the Year of Sienkiewicz.