Mariusz Szczygieł

Author of Not There

Mariusz Szczygieł is one of Europe’s most celebrated journalists. A reporter for Gazeta Wyborcza, he is the author of a number of books of reportage about the Czech Republic and Poland. His books have been published in twenty-one countries and have been awarded the Europe Book Prize and the Prix Amphi, among other honours. From 1995–2001, he hosted a popular talk show on Polish television. Szczygieł runs the Institute of Reportage in Warsaw, a creative writing reportage school, and Dowody na Isnienie, an independent publishing house. Not There won the Nike Award and Nike Readers' Award in Poland on publication in 2019.

Praise for Gottland:

“One of those delightfully unclassifiable books... Szczygieł is strange and funny, constantly off at jaunty tangents.” Julian Barnes, Book of the Year, The Guardian

”Extraordinary... Gottland is one of the funniest books I have read and one of the shrewdest about what it was like to live under fascism and communism, the experience of so much of Europe in the last century. It is not about Czechoslovakia or Poland or even limited to Mitteleuropa, but about how one copes with tyranny and corruption and preserves a conscience... Important and enjoyable.” The Spectator

”Many of the stories in Mariusz Szczygieł's portrait of Czechoslovakia could have come from the pages of Kafka... Absorbing, offbeat history.” The Financial Times

”Non-fiction stories from Czechoslovakia, which show a country more fantastical than even its wildest literature led us to believe.” The Guardian

”Gottland offers an indelible account of the ravages of 20th-century totalitarianism and the way it continues to pollute human thought and behavior in the 21st century.” New York Times