Zdzisław Najder

Who is Zdzisław Najder?

Zdzisław Najder is a Polish literary historian, critic and political activist. He is primarily known as a pre-eminent scholar on the work of author Joseph Conrad and for his positions as adviser to Lech Wałęsa and Jan Olszewski as well as for serving as chief of the Polish language section of Radio Free Europe.

Educated in Poland and England, Najder had worked as a professor in Poland and abroad before his exile from Poland in 1981, during the majority of which he worked with Radio Free Europe. Sentenced to death in absentia in his native land, he did not return until the overthrow of its communist regime, whereupon he became an active political adviser.

Najder's 1983 biography of Conrad, substantially revised in 2007, is regarded as an important work in Conrad scholarship.