Marek Nowakowski

(1935–2014) – a writer, journalist and screenwriter.

With ties to Warsaw, this author has written collections of memories of life in the old capital and short stories highlighting the absurdities of communist Poland. He made his debut in 1957 with the short story ‘Kwadratowy’ (‘Square’) in the journal Nowa Kultura.

In his work – the novel ‘Trampolina’ (Trampoline, 1964); the short-story collections ‘Silna gorączka’ (Heavy Fever, 1963), ‘Zapis’ (Record, 1965), ‘Gonitwa’ (The Chase, 1967), ‘Mizerykordia’ (Misericordia, 1971), ‘Układ zamknięty’ (Closed System, 1972) and ‘Śmierć żółwia’ (Death of a Turtle, 1973) – he delved into ignored realms of social life, of people on the outskirts of big cities. The protagonists of many of his works are in trouble with the law, on the social margins.

The poetics of peripheral realism allowed Nowakowski to explore the basic dilemmas of writing. His ample use of self-referentiality (‘Robaki’ [‘Bugs’, 1968], ‘Książę Nocy’ [‘Prince of the Night’, 1972], ‘Chłopak z gołębiem na głowie’ [‘The Boy with the Pigeon on His Head’, 1979]) shows he saw his position as between the world of the social margins and the centre, and his language vacillated between the colourful, even blunt language of the streets and the dry language of newspapers or literature. In ‘Raport o stanie wojennym’ (‘Report on a State of War’, 1982–84), ‘Notatki z codzienności’ (‘Notes from Everyday Life’, 1983), ‘Dwa dni z Aniołem’ (‘Two Days with an Angel’, 1984), ‘Wilki podchodzą ze wszystkich stron’ (‘The Wolves Are Coming from All Sides’, 1985) and ‘Grisza, ja tiebie skażu’  (‘Grisha, Ya Tebye Skazhu’, 1986), Nowakowski portrayed the lives of average citizens to show historical processes by which a whole society had found itself on the margins of a totalitarian state, owing to the code of values it practised and professed.

Nowakowski’s prose became less tendentious as it grew self-referential, in the volumes ‘Portret artysty z czasów dojrzałości’ (Portrait of an Artist at the Age of Maturity, 1987), ‘Karnawał i post’ (Carnival and Fasting, 1989) and his key short story ‘Bożydar’ from ‘Grecki bożek’ (Greek God, 1993), the author placed himself on the social periphery, thus isolating himself from all involvement and entrusting literature with passing on the most inconvenient truths – the solitude of the artist, biological mortality, ruthlessness as rules of social life. This position was a forerunner of a series of works about the new Poland, such as: Homo Polonicus (1992), Greek God, and ‘Strzały w motelu Goerge’ (Shots in the Motel George, 1997), showing Poland at the turn of the 1980s and 90s as a bazaar where everything and everyone are for sale. A counterbalance to this image of the transformation of social bonds into commodities was the nostalgic return to Warsaw just after World War II, with its colourful underworld of characters, oddballs and ‘classy criminals’ (After-Images, 1995).

Marek Nowakowski also wrote film scripts: ‘Meta’ (Finish Line, 1971), ‘Przystań’ (Port, 1970) and ‘Siedem czerwonych róż, czyli Benek Kwiaciarz o sobie i o innych’ (Seven Red Roses, or: Benek Kwiaciarz on Himself and Others, 1973). A film was made on one of his short stories, ‘Gonitwa’ (‘The Chase’, 1971). He also wrote many dramas, including: television (‘Ratusz’ [City Hall], 1973) and radio (‘Zaproszenie’ [The Invitation], 1975) monologues and radio plays (Raz Czabak z rana… [One Morning, Czubak...], 1974; ‘Głos z tego świata’ [Voice from the Next World], 1979; Skąd ten krzyk? [Where’s That Scream Coming from?], 1979). The last years of his life and after his death have seen the release of Nowakowski’s memoirs and autobiographies, including: ‘Nekropolis’ (Necropolis, 2005), ‘Pióro. Autobiografia literacka’ (The Pen: A Literary Autobiography, 2012), ‘Dziennik podróży w przeszłość’ (Diary of a Trip into the Past, 2012), ‘Okopy Świętej Trójcy. Rozmowy o życiu i ludziach. Z Markiem Nowakowskim rozmawia Krzysztof Świątek’ (Trenches of the Holy Trinity: Conversations about Life and People, Krzysztof Świątek Interviews Marek Nowakowski, 2014), ‘Tak zapamiętałem’ (What I Remember, 2016), in which we find his reflections on people and memory, as well as meditations on identity and mortality.

Nowakowski was honoured with the Kościelski Foundation Award (1968), the Solidarity Culture Award (1983) and the Freedom Award of the French PEN Club (1983). In 1984, he received the Award of the Union of Polish Writers Abroad and the Alfred Jurzykowski Foundation Award. In 2002, he took the Władysław Reymont Literary Award and was nominated for the Nike Literary Award for Empire. He also received the City of Warsaw Literary Award in the Warsaw Writer category (2010). He was given the Commander’s Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta (2006), the ZaiKS Honorary Badge (2009) and the Cross of Freedom and Solidarity (posthumously, in 2021).

Nowakowski’s works (in their entirety or fragments) have been translated into many languages, including anthologies in Bulgarian, Dutch, Romanian and Vietnamese.