Szymborska (just how that is pronounced, I don't know and cannot guess) won the Nobel Prize in 1996 and is a leading figure in the recent literary invasion from Eastern Europe (Milosz, Brodsky, Kundera etc.). The translations from the Polish by Stanislaw Baranczak and Clare Kavanagh, read smoothly and idiomatically and have an internationalised, almost standardised vocabulary and sensibility. The wide range of cultural references, the wit and intelligence and style are all obvious, but there is also a tendency to hold back emotionally and to play adroitly with themes and ideas rather than wrestle with them to the death.