signed Anne Szumigalski, SOM (3 January 1922 – 22 April 1999) was a Canadian poet.

She was born Anne Howard Davies in London, England, and grew up mostly in a Hampshire village. She served with the Red Cross as a medical auxiliary officer and interpreter during World War II, following British Army forces in 1944-5 across parts of newly liberated Europe. In 1946, she married Jan Szumigalski, (d. 1985) a former officer in the Polish Army, and lived with him in north Wales before immigrating to Canada in 1951. They had four children: Kate (born 1946), Elizabeth (1947), Tony (1961) and Mark (1963). She spent the rest of her life in Saskatchewan, first in the remote Big Muddy valley, then in Saskatoon.[1]


Signed by author on half title page. Shelf wear and rubbing. Black and white illustrations. 68 pages plus Photography Information (1 page) and Interview with Anne Szumigalski and Tom Bentley-Fisher conducted by Bruce Sinclair (7 pages). From book "Z is Anne's first play, inspired by her experiences working with victims in a newly liberated concentration camp at the end of World War II."
Synopsis:

When the concentration camps were opened at the end of World War II, Anne Szumigalski worked with the survivors as a translator for the British Red Cross. It made me look at life, she says, in a completely different way. In Z, Szumigalski translates that profound and disturbing More...
experience into an amazing theatrical event. This astonishing play explores the relationship between captive and captor and the terrible sacrifices human beings must make to survive.


"Z: A Meditation on Oppression, Desire and Freedom" is an astonishing first stage play by the internationally acclaimed and award-winning poet Anne Szumigalski which explores the relationship between captive and captor and the terrible sacrifices human beings must make to survive. When the concentration camps were opened at the end of World War II, Anne Szumigalski worked with the survivors as a translator for the British Red Cross. "It made me look at life," she says, "in a completely different way." In Z, Szumigalski translates that profound and disturbing experience into an amazing theatrical event--a blend of drama, poetry and dance.