Sławomir Mrożek

Sławomir Mrożek (born June 29, 1930, Borzęcin, Poland—died August 15, 2013, Nice, France) was a Polish playwright and satirist noted for his subtle parody and stylized language.

Mrożek entered journalism as a cartoonist and an author of short humorous articles filled with wordplay and grotesque situations. During the 1950s and ’60s he became a prominent figure in Polish literature, and the sheer absurdity of his plays helped him evade the rigours of communist censorship. He left Poland in 1963 and went eventually to Paris, becoming a French citizen in 1978. After living in Mexico from 1989 to 1996, Mrożek returned to Poland for several years, but in 2008 he reestablished his residency in France.

Six of Mrożek’s plays—Policja (1958; “Police”), Męczeństwo Piotra Oheya (1959; “The Martyrdom of Peter Ohey”), Na pełnym morzu (1961; “Out at Sea”), Karol (1962; “Charlie”), Zabawa (1963; “The Party”), and Czarowna noc (1963; “Enchanted Night”)—were translated into English by Nicholas Bethell in Six Plays by Sławomir Mrożek (1967). The most successful of Mrożek’s plays is Tango (1964; appears in English translation in both Nine Plays of the Modern Theater and Striptease; Tango; Vatzlav: Three Plays); it was produced by many Western theatres, notably in a 1966 adaptation by playwright Tom Stoppard for Britain’s Royal Shakespeare Company. Mrożek’s later plays include Wacław (1970; Vatzlav: A Play in 77 Scenes), Emigranci (1974; The Emigrants), Amor (1979; “Cupid”), and Ambasador (1984; The Ambassador).

As one of the leading European satiric writers of the last half of the 20th century, Mrożek exposed many of the nonsensical events of modern times. Bordering on the absurd with its combination of humour, wit, and the grotesque, his work transgressed political and economic systems, revealing both their universality and their sillier aspects.