Maria Wisława Anna Szymborska (Polish: [viˈswava ʂɨmˈbɔrska]; 2 July 1923 – 1 February 2012) was a Polish poet, essayist, translator, and recipient of the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature. Born in Prowent (now part of Kórnik), she resided in Kraków until the end of her life. In Poland, Szymborska's books have reached sales rivaling prominent prose authors', though she wrote in a poem, "Some Like Poetry" ("Niektórzy lubią poezję"), that "perhaps" two in a thousand people like poetry.
Szymborska was awarded the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature "for poetry that with ironic precision allows the historical and biological context to come to light in fragments of human reality". She became better known internationally as a result. Her work has been translated into English and many European languages, as well as into Arabic, Hebrew, Japanese, Persian and Chinese.
Wisława Szymborska was born on 2 July 1923 in Prowent, Poland (now part of Kórnik, Poland), the second daughter of Wincenty Szymborski and Anna (née Rottermund) Szymborska. Her father was, at that time, the steward of Count Władysław Zamoyski, a Polish patriot and charitable patron. After Zamoyski's death in 1924, her family moved to Toruń, and in 1931 to Kraków, where she lived and worked until her death in early 2012.

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