Sophie Podolski (8 October 1953 – 29 December 1974) was a Belgian poet and graphic artist. She published only one book during her lifetime, Le pays où tout est permis (1972; The Country Where Everything Is Allowed),[1] in which the poems were reproduced in her own artistic handwriting for its original 1972 edition (a censored, typeset edition followed in 1973).
Biography
Sophie Podolski studied etching at the Académie de Boitsfort and was associated with the artistic community at Montfaucon Research Center.[2]
Podolski had schizophrenia and spent time in psychiatric clinics in Paris and Brussels. She attempted suicide in Brussels on 19 December 1974 and died 10 days later as a result. The method is not disclosed in articles about her.[citation needed]
Podolski left a number of unpublished poems and graphic artworks which were posthumously published by Marc Dachy. Her work entitled Sophie Podolski Snow Queen was published as a special issue (no. 6, 1980) of the literary magazine Luna Park.[3]
^The translated title "The Country Where Everything Is Allowed" is the one used in The Princeton Encyclopedia of Poetry and Poetics (4th ed., p. 133) and in the English translation of Bolaño's "Dance Card" (section 42). The alternative translation "The Country Where Everything Is Permitted" is also seen.
^Makward, Christiane P. Dictionnaire littéraire des femmes de langue française. De Marie de France à Marie NDiaye. pp. 474–76.
