BIO

Polish prose writer, poet, journalist, essayist, playwright, publisher. Author of dozens of books of various genres and numerous newspaper columns (Tygodnik Powszechny, Gazeta Wyborcza, and others).

Expelled successively from high school, technical college, and vocational school. In the early 1980s, he was involved in the Freedom and Peace movement. He deserted from the army, for which he spent a year and a half in prison. In 1987, he left Warsaw and settled in Wołowiec, in the Beskid Niski mountain range.

He is the winner of many awards, including the Nike Literary Award (2005), the Gdynia Literary Award (2010), the Stanisław Vincenz New Culture of New Europe Award (2011), the Annual Award of the Minister of Culture and National Heritage in the field of literature (2011), the Literary Award of the Capital City of Warsaw (2015), the Austrian State Prize in the field of European literature (2016), the Nicolas Bouvier Award (2018), and the Eagle of the Century Award (2021). His books have been translated into almost all European languages, as well as Korean.

Together with his wife Monika Sznajderman, he runs the “Wydawnictwo Czarne” publishing house.