Maria Skibniewska | |
|---|---|
| Born | May 3, 1904 |
| Died | October 28, 1984 (aged 80) Warsaw |
| Burial place | Powązki Military Cemetery |
| Occupation | translator |
| Honours | Cross of Merit Medal of the 10th Anniversary of People's Poland |
Maria Skibniewska (née Skibińska; 3 May 1904 - 28 October 1984) was a Polish translator, primarily of English- and French-language literary fiction works.
She graduated from the Cecylia Plater-Zyberkówna High School and studied Polish literature at the University of Warsaw. Her studies in Romance languages were interrupted by World War II, during which she worked as a home-based weaver and survived the Warsaw Uprising. After the war, she worked as a clerk and in 1947 made her debut as a translator of literary fiction. She also served as a translator during the trial of the Auschwitz camp personnel in Kraków (1947) and at the World Congress of Intellectuals in Defense of Peace in Wrocław (1948).
From 1950 to 1971, she worked at the Czytelnik Publishing House, initially as a stylistic proofreader and later as the head of the Romance languages literature department. Throughout this time, and during her retirement, she focused on translations, primarily of literary fiction. She translated around 100 books into Polish, including works by Jean Genet, Graham Greene, Henry James, Thomas Wolfe, Bruce Marshall, William Saroyan, J. R. R. Tolkien, John Updike, and Patrick White. She was highly regarded for her translation work.
Her older brother was Franciszek Skibiński, later a divisional general of the Polish People's Army, and her husband was engineer Stanisław Skibiński, an officer in the Home Army and a Warsaw Uprising participant (codenamed Cubryna).