Jacek Dukaj

(b. 1974) – prose writer, essayist, translator and critic. Author of speculative fiction, including science fiction, fantasy and cyberpunk.

In his first prose book, Xawras Wyżryn (1997), Dukaj created an alternative vision of Polish history. His subsequent publications – including novels “Czarne oceany” (Black Oceans), “Extensa” (Extensa), “Inne pieśni” (Other Songs), “Perfekcyjna niedoskonałość” (An Ideal Imperfection) – confirmed that he has excellent command of the various conventions of speculative prose. He has an extraordinary facility for creating complete, minutely detailed worlds, based on coherent philosophical or scientific premises. He sometimes builds them as thought experiments, for example in Other Songs he tried to show what the world would look like if ancient Greek philosophers had been right about its nature and the mechanisms governing it. Usually, however, Dukaj’s inventiveness is a way to reflect on the possible results of the evolution of civilization and humanity; An Ideal Imperfection – a novel set in the 29^th century – features, for example, post-human beings.

Distinctive protagonists are a strong point of Dukaj’s prose; most often they are individuals who come to play important roles in the histories of their communities, but are also flawed, forced to grapple with themselves, like Hieronim Berbelek in Other Songs or Benedykt Gieroslawski in “Lód” (published in English as Ice). His books are enjoyed both by ordinary enthusiasts of good stories and readers whose priority is to delve into the author’s anthropological and philosophical concepts.

Dukaj is known to contribute to other cultural activities and collaborate on various works. His short story “Katedra” (The Cathedral) formed the basis for Tomasz Bagiński’s animated short film which was nominated for an Oscar in 2003, and novel “Starość aksolotla” (published in English as The Old Axolotl) – for the Netflix series Into the Night. In 2017 Dukaj presented Polish readers with a new translation of Joseph Conrad’s Heart of Darkness. According to critic Jakub Bożek: “Dukaj mines Conrad’s novella for its raw extract, the essence of what it’s like to physically experience the Congolese jungle: the humidity, the heat, the dull indolence, its attack on the senses and the mind, finally – the sense of threat”. In 2022 the writer founded a company called Nolensum with the aim of producing games based on his prose. The studio’s first production is to be Hardware Dreams based on The Old Axolotl.

Jacek Dukaj is a multiple winner of the Janusz A. Zajdel Award, prestigious in the speculative fiction milieu, and many other awards. The novel Ice received nominations for, among others, the Angelus Central European Literature Award (2007) and the Nike Literary Award (2007), and won the European Union Prize for Literature and the Kościelski Award (2008). In 2023 he won the “Best author” category of the award granted by the European Science Fiction Society. In 2012 he received the Bronze Gloria Artis Medal for Merit to Culture.