Maciej Słomczyński (April 10, 1922 – March 21, 1998) was a Polish

translator Translation is the communication of the meaning of a source-language text by means of an equivalent target-language text. The English language draws a terminological distinction (which does not exist in every language) between ''transl ...

and

writer A writer is a person who uses written words in different writing styles and techniques to communicate ideas. Writers produce different forms of literary art and creative writing such as novels, short stories, books, poetry, travelogues, p ...

. For his detective stories he used the pen names Joe Alex and Kazimierz Kwaśniewski.

Life and work

Born in

Warsaw Warsaw ( pl, Warszawa, ), officially the Capital City of Warsaw,, abbreviation: ''m.st. Warszawa'' is the capital and largest city of Poland. The metropolis stands on the River Vistula in east-central Poland, and its population is officia ...

, he was the son of

Merian C. Cooper Merian Caldwell Cooper (October 24, 1893 – April 21, 1973) was an American filmmaker and Academy Award winner, as well as a former aviator who served as an officer in the United States Air Force and Polish Air Force. In film, he is credited a ...

, an American aviator,

American Air Force The United States Air Force (USAF) is the air service branch of the United States Armed Forces, and is one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. Originally created on 1 August 1907, as a part of the United States Army Signal ...

and Polish Air Force officer, adventurer, and the screenwriter,

director Director may refer to: Literature * ''Director'' (magazine), a British magazine * ''The Director'' (novel), a 1971 novel by Henry Denker * ''The Director'' (play), a 2000 play by Nancy Hasty Music * Director (band), an Irish rock band * ''D ...

and producer of the film ''

King Kong King Kong is a fictional giant monster resembling a gorilla, who has appeared in various media since 1933. He has been dubbed The Eighth Wonder of the World, a phrase commonly used within the franchise. His first appearance was in the novelizat ...

''. His mother was an Englishwoman, Marjorie Słomczyńska née Crosby (1884–1954). He adopted his last name, Słomczyński, after his stepfather, Aleksander Słomczyński, who married Marjorie after she had not agreed to leave for the United States with Cooper. However, the fatherhood of Cooper has been questioned, among others, by his family. In 1941, he joined the Polish resistance organization Confederation of the Nation and in 1943 the Polish

Home Army The Home Army ( pl, Armia Krajowa, abbreviated AK; ) was the dominant resistance movement in German-occupied Poland during World War II. The Home Army was formed in February 1942 from the earlier Związek Walki Zbrojnej (Armed Resistance) est ...

. In 1944 he was arrested and imprisoned in

Pawiak Pawiak () was a prison built in 1835 in Warsaw, Congress Poland. During the January 1863 Uprising, it served as a transfer camp for Poles sentenced by Imperial Russia to deportation to Siberia. During the World War II German occupation ...

, from which he managed to escape. Later he moved West and served in the American Gendarmerie in France. He debuted as a poet in 1946 in the "Tydzień" magazine in

Łódź Łódź, also rendered in English as Lodz, is a city in central Poland and a former industrial centre. It is the capital of Łódź Voivodeship, and is located approximately south-west of Warsaw. The city's coat of arms is an example of cant ...

. In 1947 he returned to Poland and seven years later he moved permanently to

Kraków Kraków (), or Cracow, is the second-largest and one of the oldest cities in Poland. Situated on the Vistula River in Lesser Poland Voivodeship, the city dates back to the seventh century. Kraków was the official capital of Poland until 1596 ...

. After the war he was persecuted and questioned as a suspected British spy. For a few months in 1953 he worked for the State Security and he fled to Gdańsk to break the contact with the agency. Later, he persistently refused to cooperate. He is the author of the 1957 novel "Cassiopeia", in which he presented the attitudes of the artistic circles towards communism and the reasons, which made a great part of these circles to serve the new government. He translated ''Ulysses'' and '' Gulliver's Travels'' into Polish; he was the only person in the world to translate all the works of

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 26 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

. His translations of Shakespeare were, however, subjected to critique for the lack of clarity, faithfulness to the original or any literary value. He was the member of the

Stowarzyszenie Pisarzy Polskich The ''Stowarzyszenie Pisarzy Polskich'' is a Polish Writers' Association, an organization of Polish writers, poets, playwrights, critics and translators. SPP, established in 1989 is a continuation of the Professional Union of Polish Writers, fou ...

and Rotary Club, as well as the vice-president of the international association "The James Joyce Foundation", and since 1973, a member of the Irish Institute. Maciej Slomczynski grave

Joe Alex and Kazimierz Kwaśniewski

Słomczyński was the author of

crime fiction Crime fiction, detective story, murder mystery, mystery novel, and police novel are terms used to describe narratives that centre on criminal acts and especially on the investigation, either by an amateur or a professional detective, of a crime, ...

published under the pen names Joe Alex (or Józef Aleks) and Kazimierz Kwaśniewski. As Joe Alex he authored film scripts, stage plays and

TV play A television play is a television programming genre which is a drama performance broadcast from a multiple-camera setup, multi-camera television studio, usually live in the early days of television but later recorded to tape. This is in contra ...

s, in particular, for the TV .http://www.e-teatr.pl/pl/artykuly/41618.html "Kobra znów kąsa"] Cobra Bites Again" (original from dziennik.pl, October 13, 2007, i
here
with many advertisements) Alex's crime fiction was translated into 13 languages: Belarusian, Bulgarian, Czech, Lithuanian, Latvian, German, Russian, Romanian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovak, Slovene, Ukrainian and Hungarian. Most of his books in the

USSR The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nationa ...

were published without his permission or without the permission of his descendants.

Bibliography

As Maciej Słomczyński: *''Lądujemy 6 czerwca'' *''Zadanie porucznika Kenta'' *''Fabryka śmierci'' *''Szary cień'' As Joe Alex: *''Śmierć mówi w moim imieniu'' *''Cichym ścigałam go lotem'' *''Gdzie przykazań brak dziesięciu'' *''Niechaj odnajdą swoich wrogów'' *''Zmącony spokój Pani Labiryntu'' *''Cicha jak ostatnie tchnienie'' *''Jesteś tylko diabłem'' *''Piekło jest we mnie'' *Powiem wam jak zginął *Czarne okręty As Kazimierz Kwaśniewski: *''Śmierć i Kowalski'' *''Zbrodniarz i panna'' *''Każę aktorom powtórzyć morderstwo'' *''Gdzie jest trzeci król?'' *''Ciemna jaskinia'' *''Czarny Kwiat''

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Slomczynski, Maciej English–Polish translators Polish translators Polish male writers Polish crime writers Polish crime fiction writers Translators from English Translators of William Shakespeare 1922 births 1998 deaths Writers from Warsaw People from Warsaw Voivodeship (1919–1939) Polish people of American descent Burials at Rakowicki Cemetery 20th-century translators 20th-century poets 20th-century Polish writers Polish people of English descent