Early life, and education Olga Tokarczuk was born in
Sulechów near
Zielona Góra, in western Poland. She is the daughter of two teachers, Wanda Słabowska and Józef Tokarczuk, and has a sister. Her parents were resettled from
former Polish eastern regions after
World War II; one of her grandmothers was of
Ukrainian origin. The family lived in the countryside in
Klenica, 11 miles from Zielona Góra, where her parents taught at the People's University and her father ran a school library where she found her love of literature. As a child, Tokarczuk liked
Henryk Sienkiewicz's novel
In Desert and Wilderness and
fairy tales, among others. Her family later moved to
Kietrz in
Opolian Silesia, where she graduated from the
C.K. Norwid high school. In 1979, she debuted with two short stories published in the youth scouting magazine
Na Przełaj (No. 39, under the pseudonym Natasza Borodin). Tokarczuk went on to study
clinical psychology at the
University of Warsaw in 1980, and during her studies, she volunteered in an asylum for adolescents with behavioral problems. Since 1998, she has lived between
Krajanów and Wrocław, in
Lower Silesia. Her home in Krajanów near
Nowa Ruda is in the
Sudetes mountains at the multicultural
Polish-Czech borderland. The locale has influenced her literary work; In 2009, Tokarczuk received a literary scholarship from the
Netherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and during her stay at the
NIAS campus in
Wassenaar, she wrote
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, which was published that year. Her debut novel,
Podróż ludzi księgi (
The Journey of the Book-People), was published in 1993. A
parable on two lovers' quest for the "secret of the Book"—a metaphor for the meaning of life—it is set in the 17th century and portrays an expedition to a monastery in the
Pyrenees on the trail of a book that reveals the mystery of life, ending with an ironic twist. It was well received by critics and won the Polish Publisher's Prize for best debut. Tokarczuk's next novel,
E.E. (1995), plays with the conventions of the
modernist psychological novel, and takes its title from the initials of its protagonist, the adolescent Erna Eltzner, who develops
psychic abilities. Growing up in a wealthy German-Polish family in the 1920s in
Wrocław, at that time a German city named Breslau, she allegedly becomes a medium, a fact her mother begins to take advantage of by organizing
spiritual sessions. Tokarczuk introduces the characters of scientists, the psychiatrist-patient relationship, and despite elements of
spiritualism,
occultism, and
gnosticism, she represents psychological realism and cognitive
scepticism. Katarzyna Kantner, a literary scholar who defended her PhD thesis on Tokarczuk's work, points to Jung's doctoral dissertation
On the Psychology and Pathology of So-Called Occult Phenomena as an inspiration.
Primeval and Other Times Tokarczuk's third novel,
Primeval and Other Times (
Prawiek i inne czasy, Eng. 2010), was published in 1996 and was highly successful. It is set in the fictitious village of Primeval at the very heart of Poland, which is populated by eccentric,
archetypical characters. The village, a microcosm of Europe, is guarded by four archangels, from whose perspective the book chronicles its inhabitants' lives over eight decades, beginning in the year
World War I broke out. The book presents the creation of a myth emerging before the reader's eyes. "This is Primeval: an enclosed snow globe, a world in itself, which it may or may not be possible to ever leave. [...] And yet, as much as the town of Primeval is devastated, over and over, by history, there is also a counter dream, full of creaturely magic and wonder." Translated into many languages, with an English version by
Antonia Lloyd-Jones,
Primeval and Other Times established Tokarczuk's reputation as one of the most important representatives of
Polish literature in her generation. After
Primeval and Other Times, her work began drifting away from the novel genre toward shorter prose texts and essays. Tokarczuk's next book,
Szafa (
The Wardrobe, 1997) was a collection of three novella-type stories.
House of Day, House of Night and other works House of Day, House of Night (
Dom dzienny, dom nocny, 1998, Eng. 2003) is what Tokarczuk calls a "constellation novel", a patchwork of loosely connected, disparate stories, sketches, and essays about life past and present in her adopted home in Krajanów, which allow various interpretations and enable communication at a deeper, psychological level. Her goal is to make those images, fragments of narrative and motif, merge only on entering the reader's consciousness. While some, at least those unfamiliar with
Central European history, have called it Tokarczuk's most "difficult" book, it was her first to be published in English and was shortlisted for the
International Dublin Literary Award in 2004. She also published a volume with three modern Christmas tales, together with
Jerzy Pilch and
Andrzej Stasiuk (
Opowieści wigilijne, 2000).
Ostatnie historie (
The Last Stories, 2004) is an exploration of death from the perspectives of three generations, while the novel
Anna In w grobowcach świata (
Anna In in the Tombs of the World, 2006) was a contribution to the
Canongate Myth Series by Polish publisher
Znak.
Flights Tokarczuk's novel
Flights (
Bieguni, 2007, Eng. 2018) returns to the patchwork approach of essay and fiction, the major theme of which is modern-day nomads. The book explores how a person moves through time and space as well as the psychology of traveling.
Flights received both the jury and the readers' prize of the 2008
Nike Awards, and then the 2018
Man Booker International Prize (translation by
Jennifer Croft).
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of The Dead In 2009, Tokarczuk published the existential,
noir thriller novel
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (
Prowadź swój pług przez kości umarłych, Eng. 2019), an acid social satire that is not a conventional crime story. The main character and narrator is Janina Duszejko, a woman in her 60s living in a rural area in the Polish
Kłodzko Valley, eccentric in perception of others through
astrology and fond of the poetry of
William Blake, from whose work the book's title is taken. She decides to investigate the murders of members of the local hunting club and initially explains them as having been caused by wild animals taking revenge on hunters. The novel was a bestseller in Poland. It was the basis of the
crime film Spoor (2017), directed by
Agnieszka Holland, which won the
Alfred Bauer Prize (Silver Bear) at the
67th Berlin International Film Festival. The English translation by Antonia Lloyd-Jones earned Tokarczuk a second nomination for the Man Booker International Prize. In 2022, a stage version of the novel was produced by the British theatre company
Complicité. '' at the
Berlinale 2017 The Books of Jacob The epic novel
The Books of Jacob (2014, English translation 2021 by Jennifer Croft) is a journey over seven borders, five languages, and three major religions. Beginning in 1752 at the historical eastern
Galicia region, now western Ukraine, it revolves around the controversial 18th-century
Polish-Jewish religious leader and mystic
Jacob Frank, among other historical figures, and ends near mid-20th-century
Korolówka, Poland, where a family of local Jews had hidden from the
Holocaust. Frank, who founded the
Frankist sect fighting for the rights and emancipation of the Jews, encouraged his followers to transgress moral boundaries, even promoting orgiastic rites. The Frankists were persecuted in the Jewish community, especially after Frank led his followers to be
baptised by the Roman Catholic church. The church later imprisoned him for heresy for more than a decade, only for Frank to declare that he was the
messiah. Through third-person accounts, the action takes place in present-day Turkey, Greece, Austria, and Germany, capturing regional spirit, climate, and interesting customs. The
Jan Michalski Prize jury wrote: In the historical and ideological divides of
Polish literature, the book has been characterized as anti-
Sienkiewicz. It was soon acclaimed by critics and readers, but its reception was hostile in some Polish
nationalist circles and Tokarczuk was targeted by an online harassment campaign.
The Empusium In 2022, she published
The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story. Inspired by
Thomas Mann's
The Magic Mountain and the
horror genre, it deals with themes such as
misogyny and humanity's limited understanding of the world. It was translated into English in 2024 by
Antonia Lloyd-Jones.
Literary Heights Festival at the
Literary Heights Festival (2018)|right Since its foundation in 2015, Tokarczuk has co-hosted the
Literary Heights Festival, which has included events in her village. The festival has a rich program of cultural events, such as educational sessions and workshops, debates, concerts, film screenings, and exhibitions.
Olga Tokarczuk Foundation In November 2019, Tokarczuk established an eponymous foundation with a planned wide range of literature-related activities to create a progressive intellectual and artistic centre. It was declared that Polish poet
Tymoteusz Karpowicz's villa in
Wrocław would be its future seat. Tokarczuk allocated 10% of her Nobel prize money to the body and Agnieszka Holland and Ireneusz Grin have joined the Foundation Council. The foundation started operation in October 2020, implementing educational programs, organizing writing contests and public debates, and funding scholarships for young aspiring writers and international residencies. ==Views==