Magdalena Grzebałkowska

(b. 1972) – one of the most important contemporary Polish reporters and non-fiction writers.

She is mainly connected to Gazeta Wyborcza, where she published pieces in the Duży Format supplement. She specialises in portraits of figures and epochs that elude unambiguous evaluations.

Her book debut came with ‘Ksiądz Paradoks. Biografia Jana Twardowskiego’ (Father Paradox: A Biography of Jan Twardowski, 2011), showing the famous Polish spiritual leader and poet as a contradictory, sometimes quite solitary figure. Grzebałkowska sensitively went behind the scenes, depicting the spiritual and private life of Father Jan Twardowski and showing how his work was apprehended by readers and used in the public sphere.

Grzebałkowska’s next book was ‘Beksińscy. Portret podwójny’ (The Beksińskis: A Double Portrait, 2014), presenting the tense, obsessive and lonely relations between the painter Zdzisław Beksiński and his son, the music journalist Tomasz Beksiński. The reporter’s tale offers a psychological portrait of two outstanding, but extremely different personalities. The author explores the inheritance of emotions, family relations and the limits of art. This book is considered one of the finest Polish biographies of recent years.

In a historical reportage, ‘1945.Wojna i pokój’ (1945: War and Peace, 2015), Grzebałkowska looks at the post-war ruins and chaos that reigned after World War II. She speaks of reconstruction and trauma, giving the floor to ordinary people and their dramatic experiences.

‘Komeda. Osobiste życie jazzu’ (Komeda: A Personal Life of Jazz, 2018) is a tale not only of the path of the great jazz musician Krzysztof Komeda, but also his private life, and his dramatic death. Grzebałkowska also sketches a portrait of the arts community in communist Poland and speaks of the birth of the Polish jazz scene.

‘Wojenka. O dzieciach, które dorosły bez ostrzeżenia’ (The Little War: Of Children Who Grew Up Without Warning, 2021) is another piece of historical reportage by Grzebałkowska with a vivid collective protagonist, in this case, children who survived World War II in Poland, Germany and Ukraine. She shows the stamp left on their psyches, identities and adult lives, confronting childhood innocence with the ruthlessness of history.

In ‘Dezorientacje. Biografia Marii Konopnickiej’ (Disorientations: A Biography of Maria Kropnicka, 2024), the author undermines the conventional, oft-repeated image of the patriot poet. She shows Konopnicka to be an independent, controversial and liberated woman, both in her private and creative life. She offers a new and unusual look at this icon of Polish culture, inserting her in contemporary discourses of gender, feminism, freedom and art.

‘Jak się starzeć bez godności’ (How to Grow Old Without Dignity) and ‘Na bogato. Jak się starzeć bez godności 2’ (Loaded: How to Grow Old Without Dignity 2) are anti-guidebooks written with reporter Ewa Winnicka, based on their podcast of the same title. The writers speak with humour and distance about ageing and seek answers to how to deal with their own mortality.

Magdalena Grzebałkowska has won many literary and journalism awards, including the Prof. Stefan Myczkowski Award (2005), the Stefan Żeromski Award (2008, 2010) and the Grand Press Award for specialist journalism (2009). She has also received the Wawrzyn Silesian Literary Award (2014) for The Beksińskis: A Double Portrait, for which she was also nominated for the Gryfia Literary Award for Female Writers and the Ryszard Kapuściński Award, and in 2015 she was also nominated for 1945: War and Peace. The same book brought her the Teresa Torańska Newsweek Award (2015). Grzebałkowska has also won the Polish-German Tadeusz Mazowiecki Journalism Award (2015) and has been twice nominated for the Nike Literary Award (in 2016 for 1945: War and Peace and in 2022 for The Little War).