Olga Tokarczuk

Olga Tokarczuk (born January 29, 1962, Sulechów, Poland) is a Polish writer known for her wry and complex novels that leap between centuries, places, perspectives, and mythologies. She received the 2018 Nobel Prize for Literature (awarded belatedly in 2019), lauded for her “narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life.” A best-selling author in Poland for decades, Tokarczuk was not well known outside her homeland until she became the country’s first author to win the Man Booker International Prize in 2018 for Flights (2017)—the English translation of her sixth novel, Bieguni (2007).

Background

The daughter of two teachers, Tokarczuk grew up in a progressive intellectual household. She later studied psychology at the University of Warsaw, where she became interested in the writings of Carl Jung. After graduating in 1985, Tokarczuk took a job as a clinical psychologist but left after becoming disillusioned by the work. She obtained a travel visa and labored at odd jobs in London before she returned to Poland and published a book of poetry in 1989.

Novels and other works

In 1993 Tokarczuk wrote her first novel, Podróż ludzi księgi (“The Journey of the Book-People”), a parable set in 17th-century France and Spain. It won the Polish Publisher’s Prize for best debut. Her third novel, Prawiek i inne czasy (1996; Primeval and Other Times), established Tokarczuk as an imaginative author and crucial Polish voice. The saga follows the inhabitants of a mythical Polish village through successive generations in the 20th century. In 1998 Tokarczuk published Dom dzienny, dom nocny (House of Day, House of Night), the first of what she called her “constellations novels,” stories that tell seemingly fragmented narratives.

Tokarczuk’s works from the 2000s include Gra na wielu bębenkach (2001; “Beating on Many Drums”), a book of short stories; Bieguni, a collection of vignettes of people in transit; and Prowadź swój pług przez kości umarłych (2009; Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead), an environmentalist murder mystery. She received Poland’s prestigious Nike Prize in 2008 for Bieguni and again in 2015 for her historical novel Księgi Jakubowe (2014; The Books of Jacob), which is considered her masterpiece. Told through the perspectives of different characters, the narrative chronicles the life of Jacob Frank, the 18th-century Polish sect leader who encouraged his Jewish followers to convert to Islam and Roman Catholicism.

Tokarczuk’s willingness to scrutinize Poland’s history has made her a contentious figure in her country, notably criticized by right-wing nationalists. Her later work includes Zagubiona dusza (2017; The Lost Soul), a children’s book; Opowiadania bizarne (2018; “Tales of the Bizarre”), a book of short stories; and Czuły narrator (2020; “The Tender Narrator”), a collection of essays and lectures. In 2024 she published Empuzjon (The Empusium), her first novel since winning the Nobel Prize. Set in a Polish sanitarium on the eve of World War I, the book is a subversive reimagining of Thomas Mann’s classic work The Magic Mountain (1924).

Other projects

In addition to her literary works, Tokarczuk cowrote the script for the feature film Pokot (2017; Spoor), which is based on Drive Your Plow over the Bones of the Dead. She also inaugurated an annual literary festival in 2015, held in the summer near her home in Silesia, southern Poland. In 2019 Tokarczuk used part of her winnings from the Nobel Prize to fund a foundation based in Wrocław, Poland, to support the work of writers and translators, promote Polish culture, fight discrimination, and advocate for civil liberties and animal rights.