Ishbel Szatrawska

(b. 1981) – a playwright and prose writer.

She graduated in Polish Studies (major: Theatre Studies) from the Jagiellonian University, she also took film and American studies, and classes at the private Multi Art Academy in Krakow, with Xawery Żuławski, among others. She is a co-founder of the Jewish Art Institute.

As a playwright, she debuted in 2019 with Objects in Mirror Are Closer Than They Appear in an anthology of dramas, ‘Nasz głos’ (Our Voice) published by the Helena Modrzejewska National Stary Theatre in Krakow. Over the following two years, she published two dramas in in Dialog magazine: ‘Polowanie’ (Hunting) and ‘Totentanz. Czarna noc, czarna śmierć’ (Totentanz: Black Night, Black Death). For her fully-fledged book debut, ‘Żywot i śmierć pana Hersha Libkina z Sacramento w stanie Kalifornia’ (The Life and Death of Mr Hersh Libkin of Sacramento, California, 2022), she was nominated for a Polityka Passport and the Wawrzyn Literary Award of Warmia and Masuria. This is a drama that tells the story of a Łódź Jew who immigrates to the United States to start a film career. Mateusz Pakuła called attention to the Broadway appeal of the script. As in Szatrawska’s later books, the action, orbiting around a personal story, ties in with History; traces of family left in communist Poland take their effect on the protagonist’s immigrant life on the other side of the ocean.

A year later, the author debuted as a novelist, publishing ‘Toń’ (The Depths) – a book that also concerns family ties against a backdrop of historical changes in the nation and state. This time, Szatrawska speaks of a historical land particularly dear to her heart, East Prussia, about how war and political reimaginings interfere in mixed and historically complex identities. The novel was very warmly received. Again, the author received a Wawrzyn and nominations for the Conrad Award and the Nike Literary Award. In September 2025, Theater Konstanz in Konstanz (Germany) staged a world premiere of an adaptation of the German translation of The Depths, directed by Alek Niemira.

Apart from the aforementioned nominations, Ishbel Szatrawska has received the Arts Commission Award at the Polish Competition for Exhibiting Polish Contemporary Theatre. She was also a finalist for the Gdynia Dramaturgical Award and a UNESCO Krakow City of Literature and Theatre Institute in Warsaw scholarship recipient. Her plays have been translated into German, English, Ukrainian and Danish. Her novel The Depths has also been translated into German.