Joanna Kuciel-Frydryszak

(b. 1969) – a journalist, reporter, writer; the author of biographies and historical reportage.

In her work, she consistently restores memory of women and social groups passed up by traditional historiography. She graduated in Polish philology from Wrocław University. She has been tied to the media since the 1990s, and is today considered one of the most important Polish non-fiction authors of the twenty-first century.

After her studies, she began journalistic work, first at Radio Wrocław, then in Programmes I and III of Polish Radio, in the Słowo Polskie paper, and on the Money.pl site. She later worked with the editors of Gazeta Wyborcza, including at Wysokie Obcasy Extra and Ale Historia magazines. She also worked as a lecturer at the Lower Silesian Upper Academy in Wrocław, where she ran classes in journalism and reportage.

She debuted in 2012 with the biography ‘Słonimski. Heretyk na ambonie’ (Słonimski: A Heretic at the Altar), on Antoni Słonimski. The book received recognition and brought the author a nomination for the Kazimierz Moczarski Historical Award and the Oskar Halecki Award in the History Book of the Year competition.

Her next publication, Iłła. Opowieść o Kazimierze Iłłakowiczównie (Iłła: A Tale of Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna, 2017) is the literary biography of a poet and a secretary to Józef Piłsudski. The author juxtaposed Iłłakowiczówna’s life with the dramatic history of the twentieth century, showing her protagonist to be an independent woman, artist and witness to history. The book was nominated for the Józef Łukaszewicz Award for best book about Poznań (2018).

In 2018, her third book was released, ‘Służące do wszystkiego’ (Full Service), the result of several years’ study into the fate of servants in twentieth-century Poland. This is the first such comprehensive historical reportage on this group of professionals.

Her greatest success has been ‘Chłopki. Opowieść o naszych babkach’ (Peasant Women: A Tale of Our Grandmothers, 2023). This piece of reportage was one of the most hyped literary events of recent years. It sold over 500,000 copies and has been called one of the most important books about women’s history in Poland.

The book also had an enormous social impact. It was covered in the press, on television programmes and in readings across Poland. The author stresses that her aim was to restore memory of village women who were left on the margins of historical and cultural narratives for decades.

The work of Joanna Kuciel-Frydryszak stands out with its combination of empathy, scrupulous research and elegant narrative style. The author takes a microhistory perspective – through the fates of individuals she speaks of social and cultural processes. Her books contain the motifs of the women’s invisible work, class inequalities and the unacknowledged experiences of everyday life.

The author belongs to the Literary Union Association, and her name regularly appears on lists of the most important contemporary reporters. In 2023, she was named Wrocław Citizen of the Year, and according to Wprost weekly, she is among the top-earning Polish writers.

In 2025, she entered a conflict with Marginesy Publishers, who released her bestseller Peasant Women: A Tale of our Grandmothers, demanding higher dividends as a result of the print run exceeding half a million copies. In August 2025, the sides declared they had reached an agreement for additional payment. The conflict spurred a heated discussion in the business concerning authors’ contracts, bestseller clauses and transparency of payment in Poland.