Hanna Krall
Krall in 2011
Born	1935 (age 89–90) Warsaw, Poland
Occupation	Novelist, journalist
Nationality	Polish
Notable awards	Herder Prize, 2005

Hanna Krall (born 1935) is a Polish writer with a degree in journalism from theUniversity of Warsaw, specializing among other subjects in the history ofthe Holocaust in occupied Poland.^[1]

Krall is of Jewish origin, the daughter of Salomon Krall and Felicia Jadwiganée Reichold. She was born inWarsaw, Poland,^[2] but her date of birth is contested between 20 May 1935 and 20 May 1937.^[3] She was four (or two) years old, living inLublin, when World War II began with the Nazi Germaninvasion of Poland. Krall lost most of her close relatives in the Holocaust, including her mother and father, who were murdered inMajdanek.^[4] She survived deportations todeath camps only because she was hidden from the Germans by thePolish rescuers.^[1] After the war, she stayed in her childhood home inOtwock until going to theUniversity of Warsaw for her education from 1951 to 1955.

She is married to reporter Jerzy Szperkowicz and together have one daughter, Katarzyna.

After Krall finished her studies in journalism, she started working for the Polish local paperŻycie Warszawy ("Warsaw Life") from 1955 to 1966. She debuted her first article In 1966, she left the paper and began to write for the well known magazinePolityka ("Politics"). In 1981,Wojciech Jaruzelski, then Prime Minister of the formerPeople's Republic of Poland, declaredmartial law, Krall was forced to leavePolityka. Afterwards, she worked as a freelance writer for the rest of the decade, writing articles for the Catholic newsletterTygodnik Powszechny^[5]. In the early 90s, after the fall of Communism, she started writing articles for theGazeta Wyborcza, underAdam Michnik.

During Krall's time working forPolityka, she published her first book namedNa wschód od Arbatu ("Heading east fromArbat") in 1972, written after she spent several years as a correspondent in Moscow. The book depicted day-to-day life in Moscow during the 1960s.

Commercial success came with the publication of the 1977Zdążyć przed Panem Bogiem (engl. title:Shielding the Flame). The book is based on an interview with a Polish Jewishcardiologist and social activist,Marek Edelman, who was one of the founders ofŻydowska Organizacja Bojowa (Jewish Combat Organization) and who took over its leadership after the head-commanderMordechai Anielewicz had perished. 'Shielding the Flame can be seen as a model for most of Krall's works. Krall describes the relations between Jews, Poles and Germans during theHolocaust and the years thereafter.

Her most famous successKról kier znów na wylocie ("Chasing the King of Hearts") has been translated into 17 languages an earned many awards since its publication in 2006, including the German Würth Preis for European Literature 2012 and the Found in Translation Award 2014.^[6]

Apart from the central Holocaust theme, Krall's writings also reflect her search for her own identity, as can be seen very clearly inDowody na istnienie ("Evidence for Existence"). Another theme in this book is the often complicated destiny of the Polish people in history and the influence of the past on people's lives in the present. Krall was a friend ofKrzysztof Kieślowski andKrzysztof Piesiewicz, and inspiredDecalogue Number 8 in the series of films made by these two men.

Her publicationWidok z okna na pierwszym piętrze (engl. title:View from the Window on the First Floor) was a collaboration for the filmKrótki DzieńPracy (1981) by Kieślowski.^[7]

Her works have been translated into many languages and have received the most recognition in Germany and Sweden.^[5] The Belarusian 2015 Nobel LaureateSvetlana Alexievich described Krall as a key influence.^[8] Krall was a member of the Polish Writer's Union (Polish:Związek Literatów Polskich, ZLP) from 1978 to 1983 and theStowarzyszenie Pisarzy Polskich (Polish Writer's Association) from 1989 to 2020.^[9]

• Shielding the flame : an intimate conversation with Marek Edelman, the last surviving leader of the Warsaw ghetto uprising^[12]
• The subtenant / To outwit God (1992). IncludesShielding the Flame titled asTo Outwit God.^[13]
• To steal a march on God (1996). Dramatization ofShielding the Flame.^[14]
• The woman from Hamburg and other true stories (2006). IncludesTaniec na cudzym weselu (Dancing at Someone Else's Wedding) andDowody na istnienie (Proofs of Existence).^[15]
• Chasing the King of Hearts (2013)^[16]

Krall has been the recipient of many prestigious awards in Poland and across the world including the Solidarity Cultural Prize (1985),Herder Prize (2005) for her work of autobiographical fiction,Sublokatorka (The Subtenant), the Journalist Laurels of the Polish Journalists' Association (2009), the GoldMedal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis (2014), the Julian Tuwim Literary Award (2014),^[10] and the Władysław Reymont Literary Prize (2009).^[17] She was also nominated for theNike Literary Award forTam już nie ma żadnej rzeki (1998) andWyjątkowo długa linia (2004) and theAngelus Central European Literary Award forKról kier znów na wylocie (2007)^[17].

• Polish Bibliography 1988 - 2001

• Adamczyk-Garbowska, Monika. "Hanna Krall." Jewish Women: A Comprehensive Historical Encyclopedia. 1 March 2009. Jewish Women's Archive. 22 August 2009
• Schwartz, Matthias: "The Technique of Documenting. On the Early Reportages of Ryszard Kapuściński and Hanna Krall."Documentary Aesthetics in the Long 1960s in Eastern Europe and Beyond, ed. by Clemens Günther and Matthias Schwartz. Amsterdam: Brill 2024, 164–185.

• 1937 births
• Living people
• Polish Holocaust survivors
• 20th-century Polish Jews
• 21st-century Polish Jews
• 21st-century Polish writers
• Polish women writers
• Writers from Warsaw
• International Writing Program alumni
• Herder Prize recipients
• 21st-century Polish women writers

• CS1 Polish-language sources (pl)
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• Use dmy dates from July 2025
• Pages where birth or death is being automatically determined