Olga Tokarczuk

Olga Nawoja Tokarczuk (Polish: [tɔˈkart͡ʂuk]; born 29 January 1962) is a Polish writer, activist, and public intellectual.

Tokarczuk is one of the most critically acclaimed and successful Polish authors of her generation. In 2019, she was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature for "a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life".

For her novel Flights, Tokarczuk was awarded the 2018 Man Booker International Prize. Her works include Primeval and Other Times, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, and The Books of Jacob.

Tokarczuk is noted for the mythical tone of her writing. A clinical psychologist from the University of Warsaw, she has published a collection of poems, several novels, and books of shorter prose works.

For Flights and The Books of Jacob, she won the Nike Award, Poland's top literary prize, among other accolades; she won the Nike audience award five times. In 2015, she received the German-Polish Bridge Prize for her contribution to mutual understanding between European nations.

Her works have been translated into almost 40 languages, making her one of the most translated contemporary Polish writers. The Books of Jacob, regarded as her magnum opus, was released in the UK in November 2021 after seven years of translation work, followed by release in the US in February 2022. In March, it was shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize.