Polish writer. With 22 the author Marek Hlasko was famous, with 24 a celebrated exile writer and with 35 years already dead. Hlasko led a life coined/shaped by alcohol excesses and numerous dear affairs - besides he wrote some remarkably good novels. Marek Hlasko burst on the scene in 1954 at age 20 and, by way of a stream of miraculous short stories and his work as reviewer of both books and film, soon came to dominate Polish literary life. He was a superstar, an idol, an image. Not only does he look like the newly created film star James Dean in the most prevalent photo we have of him, but he also, like Dean's character, was a born rebel. In 1958 Hlasko received a visa to visit the West. Polish censors having refused publication to his latest novels, "The Graveyard" and "Next Stop -- Paradise," he had passed them on to the Polish migr journal Kultura. Now under fire from the Polish press, he decided to remain in the West. He never returned to Poland.For years he wandered, from France to Italy and Switzerland, then back to West Germany. For a time he was married to german actress Sonja Ziemann, who had starred in the film made from "The Eighth Day of the Week," and lived with her in West Germany. When they separated, in 1966, he spent three years in the States. He hoped for a co-operation with Polanski, which wanted him to be a film script author. However nothing becomes. Hlasko remains nevertheless and completes a flight course.He worked illegally as he had years before in Israel. (A novel based upon his experiences in America was published posthumously; like so much else, including his autobiography, it remains untranslated.) In 1969 Hlasko made plans to move back to Israel but died on the way, in Wiesbaden, West Germany, of an overdose of sleeping pills. He was 35.