Mikołaj Grynberg

(b. 1966) – a writer, reporter, photographer and director.

He graduated from the Faculty of Psychology at the University of Warsaw. His themes are memory, identity and the Jewish experience after the Holocaust. As an author and photographer he addresses issues of the inheritance of trauma, life in the shadow of history and contemporary forms of exclusion. He lives and works in Warsaw.

Before he became a writer, he did art photography; his work has been exhibited in Poland and abroad, in Israel, Germany, Sweden, the USA and Brazil. In 2004, he began a photography series, ‘Dużo kobiet’ (Lots of Women), and in 2010, the project ‘Auschwitz – co ja tu robię?’ (Auschwitz – What Am I Doing Here?), a reflection on a memory site and its visitors’ emotions. At the same time, he began writing reportage and non-fiction books, which swiftly brought him critical acclaim.

He debuted in 2012 with a collection of interviews, ‘Ocaleni z XX wieku’ (Spared in the Twentieth Century), in which he recorded the voices of Polish Jews – Holocaust survivors living in Israel. His next books – ‘Oskarżam Auschwitz. Opowieści rodzinne’ (J’Accuse Auschwitz: Family Tales, 2014) and ‘Księga wyjścia’ (The Book of Exodus, 2018) – look at the memories of the second and third generations after the Holocaust and the emigrants of March ’68. His work stands out for its tone of intimate testimony, empathy for his interlocutors and style based on minimalism and dialogue.

In 2017, he published ‘Rejwach’, a collection of short tales inspired by real stories, in which he joined elements of fact and fiction. This book was nominated for the Nike Literary Award and the Angelus Award, and brought the author distinctions at the Warsaw Literary Premiere. In 2021 there was an American publication of ‘Rejwach’ translated by Sean Gasper Bye as I’d Like to Say Sorry, but There’s No One to Say Sorry To, which was acclaimed by the critics and a finalist for the National Jewish Book Awards and the Sami Rohr Prize for Jewish Literature.

Grynberg’s later books – ‘Poufne’ (Confidential, 2020), ‘Jezus umarł w Polsce’ (Jesus Died in Poland, 2023) and ‘Rok, w którym nie umarłem’ (The Year I Didn’t Die, 2025) – develop themes of family memory and contemporary social tensions, confirming the nature of his work as a literature of dialogue and testimony. The reportage Jesus Died in Poland brought Grynberg the Wiesław Kazanecki Literary Award and a nomination for the Nike Literary Award (2024).

Grynberg has also directed a documentary film, ‘Dowód tożsamości’ (Proof of Identity, 2021), on the problem of Jewish identity in Poland after March ’68. He ha published in Gazeta Wyborcza, Polityka, Chidusz, Wizje and Dwutygodnik. His work has been translated into English, German, French, Italian and Hebrew.

In his books, Grynberg tells of people lost in history, of memory that will not leave you in peace, and the need to talk, in spite of differences. His style is simple, devoid of pathos, focused on emotional truth. He does not moralise – he listens. As he has said himself: ‘I write so that we better understand each other’.