Szczepan Twardoch
Szczepan Twardoch was born in 1979 in Pilchowice, Poland, in the Silesian Voivodeship [Województwo śląskie] and belongs to a minority of Polish Silesians. Twardoch studied sociology and philosophy in Katowice. He came to literary writing while working on his master’s thesis on the French Revolution. The central question he asked himself was how European history might have unfolded if the revolution had broken out in Vienna instead of Paris.
In his subsequent novels, Twardoch concentrates primarily on Polish history. He made his breakthrough with the novel »Morfina« [2012; tr: Morphine]; the book became an international success and was awarded the Paszport Polityki, the Nike Audience Award, and the Kościelski Award. The novel takes place in Warsaw at the end of the thirties, after the German invasion, and follows the story of an army reserve officer. He lives an extravagant lifestyle as a bon vivant and ultimately, almost accidentally, becomes a resistance fighter. »In this great anti-front novel too, Twardoch poses the driving question behind his writing: Is there a point to the story? Or does everything stay as it always has been because only institutions, and not people, evolve? Are ideologies not just monsters that drive people into unfamiliar oversimplification?« [FAZ]. Twardoch’s 2014 Silesian novel »Drach«, for which he and translator Olaf Kühl received the Brücke Berlin Literature and Translator Award for its German translation [2016], is also about the course of history – from the Middle Ages to the uprisings of the 1920s, and from World War II and forced colonization after 1945 until today. In the novel, the earth appears as the exclusive witness of historical events. Twardoch’s novel »Król« [2017; Eng. »The King of Warsaw«, 2020] is set in Warsaw during the interwar years and focuses primarily on the Jewish underworld king Jakub Shapiro. His next novel, »Królestwo« [2018; tr: Kingdom], keeps the story going. In Warsaw, after the German attack in 1939, Shapiro takes up arms in a hopeless struggle. His small empire and family are falling apart, and the cost of survival in the Warsaw ghetto is high. His most recent novel, »Pokora« [2020; tr: Humbleness] deals with the identity crisis faced by a miner’s son during the period between World War I and the revolutionary turmoil in Berlin and unrest in Upper Silesia.
In addition to many other awards, Szczepan Twardoch received the German-Polish Samuel Bogumił Linde Prize in 2019. He lives in Pilchowice and Warsaw.
Date: 2022
Sternberg
superNOWA
Warschau, 2007
Epifania wikarego Trzaski
Wydawnictwo Dolnośląskie
Wrocław, 2007
Wieczny Grunwald, powieść zza końca czasów
Narodowe Centrum Kultury
Warschau, 2010
Morphin
Rowohlt Berlin
Berlin, 2014
[Ü: Olaf Kühl]
Drach
Rowohlt Berlin
Berlin, 2016
[Ü: Olaf Kühl]
Der Boxer
Rowohlt Berlin
Berlin, 2018
[Ü: Olaf Kühl]
Wale und Nachtfalter
Tagebuch vom Leben und Reisen
Rowohlt Berlin
Berlin, 2019
[Ü: Olaf Kühl]
Jak nie zostałem poetą
Wydawnictwo Literackie
Krakau, 2019
Das schwarze Königreich
Rowohlt Berlin
Berlin, 2020
[Ü: Olaf Kühl]
Demut
Rowohlt Berlin
Berlin, 2022
[Ü: Olaf Kühl]