Tokarczuk is noted for the mythical tone of her writing. Aclinical psychologist from theUniversity of Warsaw, she has published a collection of poems, several novels, and books of shorterprose works. ForFlights andThe Books of Jacob, she won theNike Award, Poland's top literary prize, among other accolades; she won the Nike audience award five times. In 2015, she received the German-PolishBridge Prize for her contribution tomutual understanding between European nations.
Her works have been translated into almost 40 languages, making her one of the most translated contemporary Polish writers.[4]The Books of Jacob, regarded as hermagnum opus, was released in the UK in November 2021 after seven years of translation work,[5] followed by release in the US in February 2022.[6] In March, it was shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize.[7]
Olga Tokarczuk was born inSulechów nearZielona Góra, in western Poland. She is the daughter of two teachers, Wanda Słabowska and Józef Tokarczuk, and has a sister.[8] Her parents were resettled fromformer Polish eastern regions afterWorld War II; one of her grandmothers was ofUkrainian origin.[9][10][11] The family lived in the countryside inKlenica, 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.[12] Her father was a member of thePolish United Workers' Party.[13] As a child, Tokarczuk likedHenryk Sienkiewicz's novelIn Desert and Wilderness andfairy tales, among others.[14] Her family later moved toKietrz inOpolian Silesia, where she graduated from theC.K. Norwid high school.[15] In 1979, she debuted with two short stories published in the youth scouting magazineNa Przełaj (No. 39, under the pseudonym Natasza Borodin).[citation needed]
Tokarczuk went on to studyclinical psychology at theUniversity of Warsaw in 1980, and during her studies, she volunteered in an asylum for adolescents with behavioral problems.[16] After graduation in 1985, she moved toWrocław and laterWałbrzych, where she worked as apsychotherapist in 1986–89 and teachers' trainer in 1989–96. In the meantime, she published poems and reviews in the press and a book of poetry in 1989. Her works were awarded at Walbrzych Literary Paths (1988, 1990).[8] Tokarczuk quit to concentrate on literature. She said she felt "more neurotic than my clients".[12] She did odd jobs in London for a while, improving her English, and had literary scholarships in the United States (1996) and in Berlin (2001/02).[8]
Tokarczuk considers herself a disciple ofCarl Jung and cites his psychology as an inspiration for her writing.[17][18][19]
Since 1998, she has lived betweenKrajanów and Wrocław, inLower Silesia. Her home in Krajanów nearNowa Ruda is in theSudetes mountains at the multiculturalPolish-Czech borderland. The locale has influenced her literary work;[15] the novelHouse of Day, House of Night touches on life in the region, and the action ofDrive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead takes place in the picturesqueKłodzko Valley. In 1998, together with her first husband, Tokarczuk founded the Rutapublishing house, which operated until 2004.[8] She was an organizer of the International Short Story Festival, which was inaugurated in Wrocław in 2004. As a guest lecturer, she conducted prose workshops at universities inKraków andOpole. Tokarczuk joined the editorial team ofKrytyka Polityczna (Eng. ed.Political Critique), a magazine as well as a large pan-regional network of institutions and activists, and currently serves on theboard of trustees of its academic and research unit, the Institute for Advance Study in Warsaw.[8][20]
In 2009, Tokarczuk received a literary scholarship from theNetherlands Academy of Arts and Sciences, and during her stay at theNIAS campus inWassenaar, she wroteDrive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, which was published that year.[8][14]
Roman Fingas, a fellow psychologist, was Tokarczuk's first husband. They married when she was 23 and later divorced; their son Zbigniew was born in 1986. Grzegorz Zygadło is her second husband. She is a vegetarian.[14]
Tokarczuk's first book, the poetry collectionMiasta w lustrach (Cities in Mirrors), was published in 1989.[16] Her debut novel,Podróż ludzi księgi (The Journey of the Book-People), was published in 1993. Aparable 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 thePyrenees 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.[21]
Tokarczuk's next novel,E.E. (1995), plays with the conventions of themodernistpsychological novel, and takes its title from the initials of its protagonist, the adolescent Erna Eltzner, who developspsychic abilities. Growing up in a wealthy German-Polish family in the 1920s inWrocław, at that time a German city named Breslau, she allegedly becomes a medium, a fact her mother begins to take advantage of by organizingspiritual sessions. Tokarczuk introduces the characters of scientists, the psychiatrist-patient relationship, and despite elements ofspiritualism,occultism, andgnosticism, she represents psychological realism and cognitivescepticism. Katarzyna Kantner, a literary scholar who defended her PhD thesis on Tokarczuk's work, points to Jung's doctoral dissertationOn the Psychology and Pathology of So-Called Occult Phenomena as an inspiration.[17][22]
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 yearWorld War I broke out.[23] 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."[24] Translated into many languages, with an English version byAntonia Lloyd-Jones,Primeval and Other Times established Tokarczuk's reputation as one of the most important representatives ofPolish literature in her generation.[25][26]
AfterPrimeval 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 (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 withCentral European history, have called it Tokarczuk's most "difficult" book, it was her first to be published in English and was shortlisted for theInternational Dublin Literary Award in 2004.[27][28]
House of Day, House of Night was followed by a collection of short stories,Gra na wielu bębenkach (Playing on Many Drums, 2001) and a book-length nonfiction essay,Lalka i perła (The Doll and the Pearl, 2000), aboutBolesław Prus's classic novelThe Doll.[29] She also published a volume with three modern Christmas tales, together withJerzy Pilch andAndrzej Stasiuk (Opowieści wigilijne, 2000).[30]Ostatnie historie (The Last Stories, 2004) is an exploration of death from the perspectives of three generations, while the novelAnna in the Tombs of the World (2006) was a contribution to theCanongate Myth Series by Polish publisherZnak.
Tokarczuk's novelFlights (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.[31][32][33]Flights received both the jury and the readers' prize of the 2008Nike Awards, and then the 2018Man Booker International Prize (translation byJennifer Croft).[3] The novel landed on the short list for the U.S.National Book Award in the "Translated Literature" category; a panel of judges wrote:[34]
Through [...] brilliantly imagined characters and stories, interwoven with haunting, playful, and revelatory meditations,Flights explores what it means to be a traveler, a wanderer, a body in motion not only through space but through time. Where are you from? Where are you coming in from? Where are you going? we call to the traveler. Enchanting, unsettling, and wholly original,Flights is a master storyteller’s answer.
In 2009, Tokarczuk published the existential,noir thriller novelDrive 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 PolishKłodzko Valley, eccentric in perception of others throughastrology and fond of the poetry ofWilliam 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.[35][36][37] The novel was a bestseller in Poland.[38] It was the basis of thecrime filmSpoor (2017), directed byAgnieszka Holland, which won theAlfred Bauer Prize (Silver Bear) at the67th Berlin International Film Festival.[39] 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 companyComplicité.[citation needed]
The epic novelThe 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 easternGaliciaregion, now western Ukraine, it revolves around the controversial 18th-centuryPolish-Jewish religious leader and mysticJacob Frank, among other historical figures, and ends near mid-20th-centuryKorolówka, Poland, where a family of local Jews had hidden from theHolocaust. Frank, who founded theFrankistsect 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 bebaptised 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 themessiah. Through third-person accounts, the action takes place in present-day Turkey, Greece, Austria, and Germany, capturing regional spirit, climate, and interesting customs. TheJan Michalski Prize jury wrote:[40]
A work of immense erudition with a powerful epic sweep. [...] The thematic richness is impressive. The story of the Frankists, rendered through a series of mythic narratives, is transformed into a universal epic tale of the struggle against rigid thinking, either religious or philosophical, that ostracize and enslave people. An extensive and prolific work that warns against our inability to embrace an environment complex in its diversity, fueling a fanatical sectarianism which ends in disaster.The Books of Jacob, by telling the past with a dazzling virtuosity, helps us to better understand the world in which we live.
In the historical and ideological divides ofPolish literature, the book has been characterized as anti-Sienkiewicz. It was soon acclaimed by critics and readers, but its reception was hostile in some Polishnationalist circles and Tokarczuk was targeted by an online harassment campaign.[41][42]
Since its foundation in 2015, Tokarczuk has co-hosted theLiterary 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.
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 poetTymoteusz Karpowicz's villa inWrocław would be its future seat.[48] 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.[49]
Tokarczuk is a leftist and afeminist.[50][51][52] She has been criticized by some Polish nationalist groups as unpatriotic, anti-Christian, and a promoter ofeco-terrorism.[53][51] She has denied the allegations, calling herself as a "true patriot" and saying that her critics arexenophobic and damage Poland's international reputation.[54][55][56] A vocal critic ofantisemitism in Poland, Tokarczuk has said, "There's no Polish culture without Jewish culture". She has often denounced Poland for having "committed horrendous acts as colonizers, as a national majority that suppressed the minority [Jews], as slaveowners, and as the murderers of Jews". Her many public denunciations of Polish antisemitism have earned her animosity from some members of the Polish nationalist right.[57]
In 2015, after the publication ofThe Books of Jacob, Tokarczuk was criticized by theNowa Ruda Patriots association, which demanded that the town's council revoke herhonorary citizenship of Nowa Ruda because, the association claimed, she had tarnished the good name of the Polish nation. SenatorWaldemar Bonkowski of theLaw and Justice party agreed, calling Tokarczuk's literary output and public statements in "absolute contradiction to the assumptions of the Polish historical politics".[54][55][56]
In 2020, Tokarczuk was a signatory, along with other prominent writers such asMargaret Atwood,John Banville, andJ. M. Coetzee, of an open letter to President of the European CommissionUrsula von der Leyen urging the European Union "to take immediate steps to defend core European values—equality, non-discrimination, respect for minorities—which are being blatantly violated in Poland" and appealing to the Polish government to stop targeting sexual minorities and withdraw support for organizations promoting homophobia.[58][59]
Tokarczuk is a laureate of numerous literary awards in and outside Poland. Her works have become the subject of several dozen academic papers and theses.[60]
Five of Tokarczuk's books were finalists for theNike Award,[62] the most important Polish literary accolade, and two of them won the prize:Flights in 2008 andThe Books of Jacob in 2015.[63][50]
She received the 2015Brückepreis, the 20th edition of the award granted by the "Europa-CityZgorzelec/Görlitz". The prize is a joint undertaking of the German and Polish bordertwin cities aimed at advancing mutual, regional, and European peace, understanding, and cooperation among people of different nationalities, cultures, and viewpoints. Particularly appreciated by the jury was Tokarczuk's creation of literary bridges connecting people, generations, and cultures, especially residents of the border territories of Poland, Germany, and the Czech Republic, who have had different existential and historical experiences. Also stressed was Tokarczuk's "rediscovery" and elucidation of the complex multinational and multicultural past ofLower Silesia, an area of great political conflict. Attending the award ceremony in Görlitz, Tokarczuk was impressed by the positive and pragmatic attitude of the mayor of the German town toward therefugee and migrant crisis, which she contrasted with the ideological uproar surrounding the issue in Poland.[65][54][66][67]
In 2019, Tokarczuk was awarded the2018 Nobel Prize in Literature for "a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life".[72]
In March 2022,The Books of Jacob (translated by Jennifer Croft) was longlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize,[79] subsequently being shortlisted in April.[80] She was awarded honorary degrees bySofia University in 2022[81][82] andTel Aviv University in 2023.[83]
The choice of Tokarczuk was generally well received. "TheSwedish Academy has made many mistakes in recent years",Claire Armitstead wrote inThe Guardian, "but in the Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk, it has found not only a fine winner but a culturally important one."[89] In Poland, reaction was divided.[90]
Tokarczuk delivered herNobel Lecture,The Tender Narrator, at the Swedish Academy on 7 December 2019.[91] In it she spoke about her belief in the power of literature in a world of information overload and divisive narratives.[92]
At the award ceremony in Stockholm on 10 December 2019,Per Wästberg of the Swedish Academy said of Tokarczuk:
Her fusion of intensive embodiment and ephemeral unreality, intimate observation and mythological obsession, make her one of our time's most original prose writers, with new ways of viewing reality. She is a virtuoso of instant portraiture, capturing characters in the act of escaping daily life. She writes of what no one else does: "the world's excruciating strangeness". "Her prose—drastic, rich in ideas—is in nomadic movement throughout her fifteen or so books. Her villages are centres of the universe, the place a protagonist, its singular destinies woven into a fresco of fable and myth.[93]
^"Bestsellery 2009" [List of Polish bestsellers 2009].Rzeczpospolita (in Polish). 20 February 2010. Archived fromthe original on 2 February 2014. Retrieved18 June 2011.
Ruth Franklin, "Past Master: An experimental novelist and the battle for Poland's national narrative",The New Yorker, 5 & 12 August 2019, pp. 20–26. "Her role, as she sees it, is to force her readers to examine aspects of history – their own or their nation's – that they would rather avoid. She has become, she says, a 'psychotherapist of the past.'" (p. 26.)
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