Olga Tokarczuk was born in 1962 in Sulechów near Zielona Góra, Poland. A recipient of all of Poland's top literary
awards, she is one of the most critically acclaimed authors of her generation. After finishing her psychology degree
at the University of Warsaw, she initially practiced as a therapist and often cites C.G. Jung as an
inspiration for her work, in which mythmaking has become a hallmark.
Since the publication of her first book in 1989, a collection
of poems, Tokarczuk has published ten volumes of stories, novellas,
and novels, and one book-length essay (on Boleslaw Prus's novel
The Doll. In English her work has appeared in numerous
journals and anthologies, as has her novel House
of Day, House of Night. In 1998 Tokarczuk moved to a small village near the
Czech border and now divides her time between there and Wroclaw.
Her novel Bieguni received Poland's top book award, the
Nike Prize, in 2008
and its English translation by Jennifer Croft, Flights, the
Man Booker International Prize in 2018.
