Kossakowska, Maja Lidia
Entry updated 2 March 2026. Tagged: Author.
(1972-2022) Polish author, poet, and painter, married to Jarosław Grzędowicz. Her Fantastika ranges across Fantasy, Horror and sf, though she was best known for the subgenre of angel fantasy. Her output includes over a dozen novels and several short story collections. Her promising career – she was called "the First Lady" or "Queen of Polish fantastika" – was cut short by her death in a house fire.
She debuted with the short story "Mucha" ["Fly"] (January 1997 Fenix), a tale of psychological horror centered upon the concept of death as a personalized, symbiotic entity residing within each individual. She soon established herself as a prominent voice in Polish genre fiction, winning the Janusz A Zajdel Award in 2007 for the short story "Smok tańczy dla Chung Fonga" ["A Dragon Dances for Chung Fong"] (in Księga smoków ["Book of Dragons"] anth 2006), an urban fantasy in which a European assassin targeting an Asian drug lord finds his meticulously planned attempts repeatedly thwarted by improbable events, finally entertaining the possibility that a literal dragon of luck (see Supernatural Creatures) shields his quarry.
Kossakowska's most celebrated sequence, Zastępy Anielskie ["Angelic Hosts"] (2003-2018), began with a short story in 1999. Her second story set in that universe, "Beznogi Tancerz" ["Legless Dancer"], (October 2000 Fenix) won the Srebny Glob ["Silver Globe"] award from the (short-lived) Association of Fantastika Writers: a story of an angel who sacrifices himself in an act of rebellion against a corrupt, celestial hierarchy, delaying the End of the World. The sequence debuted in book format with Obrońcy Królestwa ["Defenders of the Kingdom"] (coll 2003), followed by Siewca Wiatru ["Sower of the Wind"] (2004). Though often classified as fantasy, the series gestures toward sf through its depiction of Godless Heaven and Hell as Parallel Worlds, portraying them as Dante Alighieri-inspired realms fraught with bureaucracy, political machinations and existential crises, drawing on Judeo-Christian lore but infusing it with Satirical Humour and moral ambiguity. The cycle continued with the two-volume Zbieracz Burz ["Storm Gatherer"] (2010) and the three-volume Bramy Światłości ["Gates of Light"] (2017-2018).
Her Upiór Południa ["Noonday Phantom"] tetralogy of novellas (2009) shifts to psychological Horror, telling supernatural tales of hauntings and mental breakdown in the titular, oppressive noonday heat. The collected Upiór Południa (omni 2019) received the Fawkes dla książki z cienia award from Fenix Antologia magazine.
More overtly sf-inflected is the two-volume Zakon Krańca Świata ["Order of the World's End"] (2005-2006), a Post-Holocaust tale set in a devastated Near Future where fanatical sects have triggered numerous simultaneous Disasters: Ecological and natural catastrophes, nuclear war, Alien invasion, the descent of the Four Horsemen, and others. Survivors navigate a world split into numerous, often supernatural Dimensions (artificial Paradises); the narrative blends post-apocalyptic adventure with dimensional travel in a mix of the Strugatski Brothers' Roadside Picnic (1972 Avrora 7-10) and Iain M Banks's Surface Detail (2010).
Ruda Sfora ["Red Horde"] (2007), while usually classified as a fantasy – following a protagonist on a shamanic quest across a surreal Siberian landscape – is of interest to sf readers through its demonstration of how an arguably obscure, non-Western cosmological system, here, Yakut shamanic cosmology, can be used for extensive world construction.
Kossakowska ventured fully into sf with Grillbar Galaktyka ["Grillbar Galaxy"] (2011), a comic Space Opera about an intergalactic chef framed for murder, whose flight across worlds uncovers a galaxy-threatening conspiracy; its absurd Humour, food-centric worldbuilding and whimsical treatment of Politics (a thinly veiled satire of EU food regulations) and everyday life make it one of her most playful uses of sf conventions. Clearly inspired by Douglas Adams's Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy sequence, it won the Janusz A Zajdel Award in 2012.
Kossakowska's final major Takeshi sequence opens with Takeshi: Cień śmierci ["Takeshi: Shadow of Death"] (2014). Following the titular protagonist – a wandering warrior-artist – it is set in Wakuni, a retro-futurist feudal Japan in which degraded industrialization and biomechanical creatures coexist anachronistically with samurai clan structures and medieval social hierarchies. The aesthetic debt to Ghost in the Shell (1995) is evident, and the setting qualifies as a loose variant of Cyberpunk, though the feudal and martial registers remain dominant. The cycle expectedly engages with themes of Identity and the erosion of tradition under technological pressure, without committing to the Posthuman programme. The trilogy was concluded posthumously with Takeshi 3: Pałac umarłych ["Takeshi: Palace of the Dead"] (2023). The name and theme invite comparisons to Richard Morgan's Takeshi Kovacs trilogy (2002-2005) by virtue of their warrior-philosopher protagonists navigating Asian-inspired, violence-saturated hierarchical world, but Kossakowska's concerns are martial and mythological rather than transhumanist, remaining closer to samurai fiction.
In 2007, she received the Śląkfa award in the Creator of the Year category from the Silesian Fantastika Club. [PKo]
Maja Lidia Kossakowska
born Warsaw, Poland: 27 February 1972
died Stare Załubice, Poland: 23 May 2022
works
series
Zastępy Anielskie
- Obrońcy Królestwa ["Defenders of the Kingdom"] (Warsaw, Poland: Runa, 2003) [coll: Zastępy Anielskie: pb/Stephanie Pui-mun Law]
- Żarna niebios ["Millstones of Heaven"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2008) [coll: exp vt of the above with two added stories: Zastępy Anielskie: pb/Piotr Cieśliński]
- Siewca Wiatru ["Sower of the Wind"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2004) [Zastępy Anielskie: pb/Piotr Cieślińskii]
- Zbieracz Burz: Tom 1 ["Storm Gatherer. Vol. 1"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2010) [Zastępy Anielskie: pb/Piotr Cieśliński]
- Zbieracz Burz: Tom 2 ["Storm Gatherer. Vol. 2"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2010) [Zastępy Anielskie: pb/Piotr Cieśliński]
- Bramy Światłości: Tom 1 ["Gates of Light. Vol. 1"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2017) [Zastępy Anielskie: pb/Dark Crayon]
- Bramy Światłości: Tom 2 ["Gates of Light. Vol. 2"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2018) [Zastępy Anielskie: pb/Dark Crayon]
- Bramy Światłości: Tom 3 ["Gates of Light. Vol. 3"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2018) [Zastępy Anielskie: pb/Dark Crayon]
Upiór Południa
- Upiór południa. Czerń ["Noonday Phantom: Black"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2009) [Upiór Południa: pb/Piotr Cieśliński]
- Upiór południa. Pamięć Umarłych ["Noonday Phantom: Memory of the Dead"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2009) [Upiór Południa: pb/Piotr Cieśliński]
- Upiór południa. Burzowe Kocię ["Noonday Phantom: Storm Kitty"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2009) [Upiór Południa: pb/Piotr Cieśliński]
- Upiór południa. Czas mgieł ["Noonday Phantom: Time of Fogs"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2009) [Upiór Południa: pb/Piotr Cieśliński]
- Upiór południa ["Noonday Phantom"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2019) [omni of the above four: Upiór Południa: pb/Piotr Cieśliński]
Takeshi
- Takeshi: Cień śmierci ["Takeshi: Shadow of Death"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2014) [Takeshi: pb/Paweł Zaręba]
- Takeshi: Taniec tygrysa ["Takeshi: Dance of the Tiger"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2015) [Takeshi: pb/Paweł Zaręba]
- Takeshi 3: Pałac umarłych ["Takeshi: Palace of the Dead"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2021) [Takeshi: pb/Paweł Zaręba]
individual titles
- Zakon Krańca Świata: Tom 1 ["Order of the World's End. Vol. 1"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2005) [pb/Piotr Cieśliński]
- Zakon Krańca Świata: Tom 2 ["Order of the World's End. Vol. 1"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2006) [pb/Piotr Cieśliński]
- Ruda Sfora ["Red Horde"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2007) [pb/Piotr Cieśliński]
- Grillbar Galaktyka ["Grillbar Galaxy"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2011) [pb/Piotr Cieśliński]
collections and stories
- Więzy krwi ["Bonds of Blood"] (Lublin, Poland: Fabryka Słów, 2007) [coll: pb/Piotr Cieśliński]
links
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