Wilhelm Dichter

Wilhelm Dichter (born 1935) is a Polish writer specializing in literary novels with a focus on Poles of Jewish origin. He was born in 1935 in Boryslav (in modern day Ukraine), where he survived the war. His father had died, and he and his mother (remarried after the war) came to live in Poland toward the end of 1944. He finished his studies at the Warsaw Polytechnic, where he earned his doctorate in mechanical engineering and worked for 13 years until 1968. The antisemitic campaign in 1968 in Poland provided the opportunity for him and his family to emigrate, through Vienna and Rome, eventually settling in the United States. As an expert in ballistics, he worked at Colt's Firearms in the R&D division on Long Island, New York, and later in Hartford Connecticut. In 1978, he made a transition to the field of image processing, becoming an image processing algorithm design specialist at the Linotype-Hell company. He is currently retired from his engineering work, and devotes his time to writing his third book in the series that began with ( _pl. "Koñ Pana Boga") and ("Szkoła Bezbożników"). He lives in the Boston area.

In 1996, the author's literary debut, "God's Horse" ( _pl. "Koñ Pana Boga") cite web|url=http://www.pecina.cz/files/www.ce-review.org/00/4/books4_dichter.html] was nominated for the Nike, Poland's top literary award. The book, an autobiographical, literary novel traces the life of the author from early childhood as he miraculously survives the Holocaust. The book is written without sentimentality and from the perspective of the child that he was at the time. Its simple, concise and its literary style has been likened to that of Ernest Hemingway. The book soon became required reading for high school students in Poland. Dichter's second book, "School of the Godless" ("Szkoła Bezbożników") follows the author's life after the war in the newly established Communist Poland. It is a story of the coming of age of a young man in a culture that promises a bright new future. We follow as he experiences his life in an elite, secular high school, falls in love and is conflicted with adopting a life ideology. It was also a finalist for the Nike Award. The current book begins with a maelstrom of the emigration from Poland and the creation of and adjustment to a new life for him and his family in the United States.

External links

http://www.culture.pl/en/culture/artykuly/os_dichter_wilhelm
http://www.pecina.cz/files/www.ce-review.org/00/4/books4_dichter.html