Authors
Olga Tokarczuk Novelist Poland
Whenever I am asked at airport immigration what sort of books I write, I always have trouble answering:
- Novels and stories, I say.
- But what sort of novels? asks the official. Thillers? Romances?
Then I say:
- Odd books.
And they look satisfied with that.
I am Polish. I was born in 1962 and live in Poland.
Born in 1962, Olga lives deep in the south countryside of Poland and is one of its most popular contemporary writers. Her work has been very well received ever since her debut, with a sharp yet sensitive touch on the pain of alienation that people experience in modern society.
Her first novel, Voyage of Characters in a Book (Podróż ludzi księgi), published in 1993, was selected Book of the Year by the Polish Publishers’ Association. Two years later, in 1995, she published E.E, a novel set in Wrocław, a Polish region occupied by Prussia in the beginning of the 20th century. Prawiek and Other Times (Prawiek i inne czasy), published in the same year, is probably her best known work and was shortlisted for Poland’s most prestigious literary award, the Nike. In 1997 she received the Kościelski Prize, a major literary award for young Polish writers. In 1998 she published the short story collection The Wardrobe (Szafa), and with the novel House of Day, House of Night (Dom dzienny, dom nocny) published the same year, she was once more nominated to the Nike. In 2002 she also received a literary prize from the city of Berlin for her work together with translator Esther Kinsky.
Participation Program
Round Table 3 Newness in my literature
Round Table 2 Newness in my literature
Round Table 1 Newness in my literature