Angelika Kuźniak

(b. 1974) – a cultural theorist, reporter and journalist.

Angelika Kuźniak is the author and co-author of reportage and biographies, and her books sometimes join the features of both genres. In her own books – on Marlene Dietrich, Papusza, Zofia Stryjeńska and Olga Boznańska – she presents outlines of her protagonists based on surviving documents from private lives (in Dietrich’s case, this is mainly a notebook with telephone numbers found in a Berlin archive among the actor’s things; with Papusza and Stryjeńska the main sources are, respectively, an album and a diary and family correspondence). Kuźniak looks extremely carefully at her materials, and with great attention to detail, which does not keep her from simultaneously sketching out a wider cultural and social context. Often, the point of departure for her journalistic tales, as the author herself calls them, is a seemingly insignificant object or inscription. In the afterword to Marlene, Kuźniak connects this reportage technique with Małgorzata Szejnert and her ‘telling the world through a detail’.

Kuźniak is also the co-author of the Krakow biography of songstress Ewa Demarczyk, ‘Czarny anioł’ (Black Angel) and ‘Krótka historia o długiej miłości’ (The Short Story of a Love Love), written with Ewelina Karpacz-Oboładze. The latter is the true story of the love between a messenger and a soldier of the Polish Underground, who, jailed after the war for their independence activities, communicated through Morse code, tapping on the wall that separated them. The authors drew in part from the correspondence between these figures, creating an honest and intimate look at this extraordinary relationship.

As a reporter, Kuźniak has worked with Włodzimierz Nowak, with whom she wrote ‘Noc w Wildenhagen’ (A Night in Wildenhagen), ‘Mój warszawski szał’ (My Warsaw Frenzy) and Obwód głowy (The Circumference of the Head) – all three found in one volume, titled The Circumference of the Head. In these pieces, as in many of her other works, we observe that, in handling the topic of the war and post-war times, Kuźniak explores the borderlands, seeks the perspective of the ‘other side’ – she reaches protagonists who must oppose their own national and cultural identity and delves into the tensions that arise from this.

Published in 2020, the reportage ‘Soroczki’ (Sorochkas) is a complex and subtle tale of people who are awaiting and preparing for death. The author managed to combine stories of people she met on her travels with broader reflections on how our relationship to death has changed over the years.

The Circumference of the Head was nominated for the Nike Literary Award. ‘Stryjeńska. Diabli nadali’ (Stryjeńska: Devil-Sent) also received a Nike nomination (2016). The author has won the Grand Press journalism prize on several occasions (2004, 2008, 2009).