Zbigniew Herbert (; 29 October 1924 – 28 July 1998) was a Polish poet, essayist, drama writer and moralist. He is one of the best known and the most translated post-war Polish writers. While he was first published in the 1950s (a volume titled Chord of Light was issued in 1956), soon after he voluntarily ceased submitting most of his works to official Polish government publications. He resumed publication in the 1980s, initially in the underground press. Since the 1960s, he was nominated several times for the Nobel Prize in literature. His books have been translated into 38 languages. Herbert claimed to be a distant relative of the 17th-century Anglo-Welsh poet George Herbert. Herbert was educated as an economist and a lawyer. Herbert was one of the main poets of the Polish opposition to communism. Starting in 1986, he lived in Paris, where he cooperated with the journal Zeszyty Literackie. He came back to Poland in 1992. On 1 July 2007 the Polish Government instituted 2008 as the Year of Zbigniew Herbert. In 2013, the Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award was established in honour of the poet and his literary legacy. He received the 1963 Kościelski Prize (Geneva), 1965 Jurzykowski Prize, 1965 Austrian State Prize for European Literature, 1973 Herder Prize (Austria), 1979 Petrarca-Preis (Germany), and 1991 Jerusalem Prize (Israel). Biography 1924–1956 Herbert's Austrian ancestor came to Galicia from Vienna around the turn of the 18th and 19th century. The poet's father, Bolesław (half-blooded Armenian), was a soldier in the Polish Legions during World War I and a defender of Lwów; he was a lawyer and worked as a bank manager. Herbert's grandfather was an English language teacher. Zbigniew's mother, Maria, came from the Kaniak family. Before the war Zbigniew Herbert attended the Państwowe VIII Gimnazjum i Liceum im. Króla Kazimierza Wielkiego we Lwowie (during the Soviet occupation the name was changed to High School nr 14). After the German and Soviet invasion and subsequent occupation of Lwów, he continued his studies at the secret meetings organized by the Polish underground, where he graduated and passed the A-level exam (matura) in January 1944. At the same time, (following the Nazi invasion of Poland in 1939) he got involved in conspiratorial action with the AK. During the occupation, he worked as a feeder of lice in the Rudolf Weigl Institute that produced anti-typhus vaccines; he also worked as a salesman in