Olga Tokarczuk is an eminent Polish writer, essayist, poet and screenwriter, and recipient of the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature, awarded for “a narrative imagination that with encyclopaedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life.”
Born in Sulechów, Poland, in 1962, Tokarczuk studied psychology at the University of Warsaw and worked as a psychotherapist before dedicating herself fully to writing. Since publishing her first works in the late 1980s, she has become one of Poland’s most celebrated contemporary writers, known for literature that explores identity, migration, belonging, history, human relationships and the boundaries - geographical, cultural and psychological - that shape our lives.
Her acclaimed works include Primeval and Other Times, House of Day, House of Night, Flights, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, The Books of Jacob, The Tender Narrator and The Empusium. Her distinctive approach to storytelling, often characterized by interconnected or “constellation” narratives, has earned her widespread international recognition. In 2018 her book Flights won the Man Booker International Prize.
Beyond literature, Tokarczuk is a prominent public intellectual and advocate for human rights, democracy, equality and environmental responsibility. Through her writing and public engagement, she has consistently challenged nationalism, exclusion and intolerance while championing empathy, pluralism and our shared responsibility to one another and the planet. She has received numerous Polish and international honours, including honorary doctorates from universities in Poland and abroad, and Poland’s Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis.
Through the Olga Tokarczuk Foundation, she supports writers, translators, artists and cultural initiatives and promotes literature as a space for dialogue, imagination and social change. Her work reflects a conviction that storytelling can help us understand experiences beyond our own, challenge established boundaries and imagine more just and peaceful ways of living together.
Photo credit: Olga Tokarczuk Foundation