Olga Tokarczuk
Encyclopedia
Polish literature
Polish literature is the literary tradition of Poland. Most Polish literature has been written in the Polish language, though other languages, used in Poland over the centuries, have also contributed to Polish literary traditions, including Yiddish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, German and...
of her generation, particularly noted for the hallmark mythical tone of her writing. She trained as a psychologist at the University of Warsaw. She has published a collection of poems, three novels, as well as several book with shorter prose texts and essays. Her book Bieguni ("Runners") won the Nike Award
Nike Award
The NIKE Literary Award is one of the most prestigious awards for Polish literature. Established in 1997 and funded by Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland's second largest daily paper, and the consulting company NICOM, it is conferred annually in October for the best book of a single living author writing in...
2008. She attended the 2010 Edinburgh Book festival to discuss her most successful book Primeval and other times as well as her other work. She now lives in Wrocław, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
.
Origins
Tokarczuk was born in SulechówSulechów
Sulechów is a town in Poland, in Lubusz Voivodeship, in Zielona Góra County. It is the administrative seat of the Gmina Sulechów.-History:The area by 990 had been conquered by Duke Mieszko I of Poland and from 1138 was part of the Duchy of Silesia....
near Zielona Góra
Zielona Góra
Zielona Góra is a city in Lubusz Voivodeship, in western Poland, with 117,557 inhabitants within the city limits and 294,000 inhabitants within the metropolitan area, including three neighbouring counties ....
, Poland
Poland
Poland , officially the Republic of Poland , is a country in Central Europe bordered by Germany to the west; the Czech Republic and Slovakia to the south; Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to the east; and the Baltic Sea and Kaliningrad Oblast, a Russian exclave, to the north...
. Before starting her literary career, from 1980 she trained as a psychologist
Psychology
Psychology is the study of the mind and behavior. Its immediate goal is to understand individuals and groups by both establishing general principles and researching specific cases. For many, the ultimate goal of psychology is to benefit society...
at the University of Warsaw
University of Warsaw
The University of Warsaw is the largest university in Poland and one of the most prestigious, ranked as best Polish university in 2010 and 2011...
. During her studies, she volunteered in an asylum for adolescents with behavioural problems. After her graduation in 1985, she moved first to Wrocław and later to Wałbrzych, where she began practising as a therapist. Tokarczuk considers herself a disciple of Carl Jung
Carl Jung
Carl Gustav Jung was a Swiss psychiatrist and the founder of Analytical Psychology. Jung is considered the first modern psychiatrist to view the human psyche as "by nature religious" and make it the focus of exploration. Jung is one of the best known researchers in the field of dream analysis and...
and cites his psychology as an inspiration for her literary work. Since 1998, Tokarczuk has lived in a small village near Nowa Ruda
Nowa Ruda
Nowa Ruda is a town in south-western Poland near the Czech border, lying on the Włodzica river in the central Sudetes mountains. As of 2007 it has 25,240 inhabitants. The town is located in Kłodzko County, Lower Silesian Voivodeship...
, from where she also manages her private publishing company Ruta. She lives in Wroclaw, Poland.
Published work
1989 saw the publication of Tokarczuk's first book, a collection of poems entitled Miasta w lustrach ("Cities in mirrors").Her debut novel, Podróż ludzi księgi ("The Journey of the Book-People"), a parable on two lovers' quest for the "secret of the Book" (a metaphor for the meaning of life) set in 17th century France, appeared in 1993 and gained her instant popularity with the audience and reviewers.
The follow-up novel E. E. (1996) took its title from the initials of its protagonist, a young woman named "Erna Eltzner", who grows up in a bourgeois German-Polish family in Breslau (the German city that was to become the Polish Wrocław after World War II
World War II
World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...
) in the 1920s, who develops psychic abilities.
Tokarczuk's third novel Prawiek i inne czasy ("Primeval and other times") was published in 1996 and remains her most successful to date. It is set in the fictitious village of Prawiek/Primeval at the very heart of Poland, which is populated by some eccentric, archetypical characters. The village is guarded by four archangels, from whose perspective the novel chronicles the lives of Prawiek's inhabitants over a period of eight decades, beginning in 1914. Parallel to but strangely detached from Poland's meandering political history during this time, it describes the continuum of all human joys and pains, which Prawiek seems to contain as in a nutshell. Prawiek... was translated into many languages (published in English in 2009, by Twisted Spoon Press) and established Tokarczuk's international reputation as one of the most important representatives of Polish literature in her generation.
After Prawiek..., Tokarczuk's work began drifting away from the novel genre towards shorter prose texts and essays. Her next book Szafa ("The Wardrobe", 1997) was a collection of three novella-type stories. Dom dzienny, dom nocny ("House of Day, House of Night", 1998), although nominally a novel, is rather a patchwork of loosely connected disparate stories, sketches, and essays about life past and present in the author's adopted home since that year, a village in Krajanów in the Sudetes near the Polish-Czech border. Even though arguably Tokarczuk's most "difficult", at least for those unfamiliar with Central European history, it was her first book to be published in English.
"House of Day, House of Night" was followed by a collection of short stories – Gra na wielu bębenkach ("Playing on many drums", 2001) – as well as a non-fiction essay on Bolesław Prus' classic novel The Doll (Lalka i perła /"The Doll and the Pearl", 2000). She also published a volume with three modern Christmas tales together with her equally popular male colleagues Jerzy Pilch
Jerzy Pilch
Jerzy Pilch is one of the most important contemporary Polish writers and journalists. Critics have compared Pilch's style to Witold Gombrowicz, Milan Kundera, or Bohumil Hrabal....
and Andrzej Stasiuk
Andrzej Stasiuk
Andrzej Stasiuk is one of the most successful and internationally acclaimed contemporary Polish writers, journalists and literary critics...
(Opowieści wigilijne, 2000).
Ostatnie historie ("The last stories") of 2004 is an exploration of death from the perspectives of three generations, while the novel Anna In in the Catacombs 2006 was a contribution to the Canongate Myth Series
Canongate Myth Series
Canongate Myth Series is a series of short novels in which ancient myths from myriad cultures are reimagined and rewritten by contemporary authors. The project was conceived in 1999 by Jamie Byng, owner of the independent foundation Scottish publisher Canongate Books, and the first three titles in...
by Polish publisher Znak. Her latest book Bieguni /"Runners" returns to the patchwork approach of essay and fiction, the major theme of which is modern day nomads. It won both the reader prize and the jury prize of the Nike Award
Nike Award
The NIKE Literary Award is one of the most prestigious awards for Polish literature. Established in 1997 and funded by Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland's second largest daily paper, and the consulting company NICOM, it is conferred annually in October for the best book of a single living author writing in...
2008.
In 2009 the novel ´Drive your Plough over the Bones of the Dead´ was published. The novel is wriiten in the convention of a detective story with the main character telling the story from her point of view. Janina Duszejko, an old, unattractive woman, excentric in her perception of other humans through astrology, relates a series of deaths in a rural area, somewhere near Klodzko, in Poland. She explains the deaths as caused by wild animals in vengeance on hunters. The novel poses questions related with human responsibility for and to the nature and the dangers of personal mythology.
Tokarczuk is the laureate of numerous literary awards both in and outside Poland. In 2008 she finally received the main jury award of the most important Polish accolade, the NIKE
Nike Award
The NIKE Literary Award is one of the most prestigious awards for Polish literature. Established in 1997 and funded by Gazeta Wyborcza, Poland's second largest daily paper, and the consulting company NICOM, it is conferred annually in October for the best book of a single living author writing in...
. Prior to this she won the audience award three times, Prawiek i inne czasy being the award's first recipient ever.
Tokarczuk is a member of Zieloni 2004, Poland's Green Party.
Books
- 1989: Miasta w lustrach, Kłodzko: Okolice. ("Cities in Mirrors")
- 1993: Podróż ludzi księgi. Warszawa: Przedświt. ("The Journey of the Book-People")
- 1999: E. E. Warszawa: PIW.
- 1996: Prawiek i inne czasy. Warszawa: W.A.B. ("Primeval and Other Times". Twisted Spoon Press ISBN 978-80-86264-35-6)
- 1997: Szafa. Lublin: UMCS. ("The Wardrobe")
- 1998: Dom dzienny, dom nocny. Wałbrzych: Ruta. (House of Day, House of Night. Granta. ISBN 1-86207-514-X)
- 2000 (with Jerzy PilchJerzy PilchJerzy Pilch is one of the most important contemporary Polish writers and journalists. Critics have compared Pilch's style to Witold Gombrowicz, Milan Kundera, or Bohumil Hrabal....
and Andrzej StasiukAndrzej StasiukAndrzej Stasiuk is one of the most successful and internationally acclaimed contemporary Polish writers, journalists and literary critics...
): Opowieści wigilijne. Wałbrzych: Ruta/Czarne ("Christmas Tales") - 2000: Lalka i perła. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. ("The Doll and the Pearl")
- 2001: Gra na wielu bębenkach. Wałbrzych: Ruta. ("Playing on Many Drums")
- 2004: Ostatnie historie. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. ("The Last Stories").
- 2006: Anna In w grobowcach świata. Kraków: Znak. ("Anna In in the Tombs of the World").
- 2007: Bieguni. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. ("Runners").
- 2009: Prowadź swój pług przez kości umarłych. Kraków: Wydawnictwo Literackie. ("Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead")
External links
- Review of House of Day, House of Night in The GuardianThe GuardianThe Guardian, formerly known as The Manchester Guardian , is a British national daily newspaper in the Berliner format...
- Short biography at www.polishwriting.net
- Travel Files, article by Olga Tokarczuk January 2010, English, originally published in Polityka
- Olga Tokarczuk at Twisted Spoon Press