Tokarczuk, Olga
Entry updated 23 February 2026. Tagged: Author.
(1962- ) Polish poet, journalist, screenwriter and author, active from before 1980. She is of interest for the elements of her fiction which utilize tropes out of the SF Megatext, within the enabling framework of Fantastika as a whole: the world which her tales face is complex, riven, mutable. Her very various short work has been assembled as Gra na wielu bębenkach ["Playing on Many Drums"] (coll 2001) and Opowiadania bizarne ["Bizarre Tales"] (coll 2018).
In Tokarczuk's first novel, Podróż ludzi Księgi ["The journey of the People of the Book"] (1993), which is set in seventeenth-century France and Spain, a secretive Pariah Elite searches for the eponymous Book, and the revelations – it may have been written directly by God – it should convey about reality and history. In her second novel, E E (1995), a nonfantastic narrative is invaded from other forms of inscape through its protagonist's sudden accession of Psi Powers. The fragmented portrayal of regions and their inhabitants in Prawiek i inne czasy (1996; trans Antonia Lloyd-Jones as Primeval and Other Times 2010) and Dom dzienny, dom nocny (1998; trans Antonia Lloyd-Jones as House of Day, House of Night 2002) amounts in each case to a mosaical perspective on a radically unstable world: in each case an insecure polis (the direct translation of Prawiek is indeed Primeval) is haunted by circumambient woods and their supernatural inhabitants [for Into the Woods see The Encyclopedia of Fantasy under links below]. Anna In w grobowcach świata ["Anna in the Tombs of the World"] (2006), which dramatizes Sumerian myth, was slotted for English publication in the Myths sequence from Canongate, but did not appear. The epiphanically intensified "travelogue" elements in the otherwise nonfantastic Bieguni (2007; trans Jennifer Croft as Flights 2007) occasioned critical comparisons of her work with that of W G Sebald (1944-2001). Prowadź swój plug przez kości umarlych (2009; trans Antonia Lloyd-Jones as Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead 2018) again embeds fragments of "civilized" life in the true wilderness.
This pattern – in which (like Poland itself for centuries) a vulnerable culture is surrounded by the magi and barbarians of the unknown (see Waiting for the Barbarians) – is perhaps most directly embodied in Tokarczuk's tenth novel, Empuzjon: Horror przyrodolczniczy (2022; trans Antonia Lloyd-Jones as The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story 2025). The disjunctive narrative is set just before the world-changing onset of World War One in the eponymous sanitarium, clearly modeled on the Davos at the heart of Thomas Mann's The Magic Mountain (1924); but the Empusium is invested and irradiated by the wilderness without, as conveyed through a fourth-wall-violating dance of voices: in The Empusium, which faces into history to come, the fourth wall is a wilderness which speaks back.
Olga Tokarczuk was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2018. [JC]
Olga Nawoja Tokarczuk
born Sulechów, Poland: 29 January 1962
works (selected)
- Podróż ludzi Księgi ["The journey of the People of the Book"] (Warsaw, Poland: Wydawnictwo Literackie ["Literary Publishing House"], 1993) [binding unknown/]
- E E (Warsaw, Poland: Parístwowy Instytut ["State Publishing Institute"], 1995) [binding unknown/]
- Prawiek i inne czasy (Warsaw, Poland: WAB Publishing House, 1996) [binding unknown/]
- Primeval and Other Times (Prague, Czech Republic: Twisted Spoon Press, 2010) [trans by Antonia Lloyd-Jones of the above: pb/]
- Dom dzienny, dom nocny (Warsaw, Poland: Ruta Publishing House, 1998) [binding unknown/]
- House of Day, House of Night (London: Granta Books, 2002) [trans Antonia Lloyd-Jones of the above: pb/]
- Anna In w grobowcach świata ["Anna in the Tombs of the World"] (Krakow, Poland: Znak, 2006) [in the publisher's Myths series: binding unknown/]
- Bieguni (Warsaw, Poland: Wydawnictwo Literackie ["Literary Publishing House"], 2007) [binding unknown/]
- Flights (London: Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2017) [trans by Jennifer Croft of the above: pb/nonpictorial]
- Prowadź swój plug przez kości umarlych (Warsaw, Poland: Wydawnictwo Literackie ["Literary Publishing House"], 2009) [binding unknown/]
- Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (London: Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2018) [trans by Antonia Lloyd-Jones of the above: pb/nonpictorial]
- Księgi Jakubowe albo Wielka Podróż przez siedem granic, pięć języków i trzy duże religie, nie licząc tych malych: powieść historiyczna (Warsaw, Poland: Wydawnictwo Literackie ["Literary Publishing House"], 2014) [binding unknown/]
- The Books of Jacob: Or, a Fantastic Journey Across Seven Borders, Five Languages, and Three Major Religions, Not Counting the Minor Sects (London: Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2022) [trans by Jennifer Croft of the above: pb/nonpictorial]
- Empuzjon: Horror przyrodolczniczy (Warsaw, Poland: Wydawnictwo Literackie ["Literary Publishing House"], 2022) [binding unknown/]
- The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story (London: Fitzcarraldo Editions, 2025) [trans by Antonia Lloyd-Jones of the above: pb/nonpictorial]
collections and stories
- Gra na wielu bębenkach: 19 opowiadań ["Playing on Many Drums: 19 Stories"] (Wałbrzych, Poland: Wydawnictwo Ruta, 2001) [coll: binding unknown/]
- Opowiadania bizarne ["Bizarre Tales"] (Warsaw, Poland: Wydawnictwo Literackie ["Literary Publishing House"], 2018) [coll: binding unknown/]
links
previous versions of this entry