Born in Warsaw in 1909, Andrzejewski studied
philology at the
University of Warsaw in the
Second Polish Republic. In 1932 he debuted in
ABC Magazine with his first short story entitled
Wobec czyjegoś życia. In 1936 he published a full collection of short stories called
Drogi nieuniknione, in
Biblioteka Prosto z mostu, and soon received broad recognition for his new, Catholic-inspired novel
Ład serca from 1938. During World War II he was involved in
efforts to aid the Jewish refugees. His short novel
Holy Week (1945) has been described as "arguably the first literary attempt to examine the behavior of Poles facing the Holocaust". Immediately after World War II, Andrzejewski published the volume
Night (
Noc, 1945) and his most famous novel so far,
Ashes and Diamonds (
Popiół i diament, 1948). Having joined the
Polish United Workers' Party (PZPR) in 1950, he left the party after the 1956
Polish October protests and riots. After the suppression of the Prague Spring, in which Polish troops participated, Andrzejewski wrote a letter of apology to
Eduard Goldstücker, the chairman of the Czechoslovak Writers Union. In 1964 he was one of the signatories of the so-called
Letter of 34 to Prime Minister
Józef Cyrankiewicz regarding freedom of culture. In 1976 Andrzejewski was one of the founding members of the intellectual opposition group KOR (''
Workers' Defence Committee''). Later, Andrzejewski was a strong supporter of Poland's anti-Communist
Solidarity movement. Andrzejewski was
gay. Although he was frequently considered a front-runner for the
Nobel Prize for Literature, he never received the honor. His purported
alcoholism in his later years may have hindered his literary output, thus preventing him from ever becoming a true moral authority. He died of a
heart attack in Warsaw in 1983. ==Legacy==