Feature Olga Tokarczuk
Critically lauded yet modestly travelled, Olga Tokarczuk’s work is ubiquitous in her home country— and her name is among a recurring crop of Nobel Prize in Literature contenders. Tom Tivnan asks the author about her work to date, her desire to transcend genre, and her intention to reach more readers with a new English translation
The great unknown S
HE IS PROBABLY one of the greatest living writers you have never heard of. Or, if an Anglophone monoglot, one you have had few opportunities to
read. Tomorrow’s London Book Fair Author of the Day, Olga Tokarczuk is the biggest star in Poland’s literary firmament, fêted by reviewers and garlanded with a host of literary gongs, including twice winning the “Polish Booker”, the Nike Award, most recently in 2015 for her historical novel, Ksiegi Jakubowe (The Books of Jacob). In her home country, she combines critical acclaim and commercial success. Tokarczuk is the only multiple winner of the Nike’s Audience Award (there is both the main jury prize and a separate public vote) taking it home four times. Meanwhile, The Books of Jacob is nearing 200,000 hardback units sold in Poland for Tokarczuk’s Krakow-based publisher Wydawnictwo Literackie —a massive haul for a literary novel. Tokarczuk’s fame in Poland as a public intellectual extends beyond her readership. As a leſt-of-centre, vege-
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tarian feminist in a macho, hunting-obsessed coun- try increasingly veering to the right politically, this can be difficult. Controversy erupted aſter she claimed the Nike Award and gave a television interview on The Books of Jacob, saying Poles in the past had been colonisers and commited “horrendous acts”. Readers of the novel knew it dealt with these very themes. It takes place in the 18th century, centring around the controversial historical figure Jakub Frank, a Jew by birth who led a drive to forcibly convert other Jews to Catholicism. Set in the borderlands of current-day Poland and Ukraine, its backdrop is the harsh serf economy the Poles imposed on the native Ukrainians. Hard-right, ultra-nationalist groups leapt on Tokarc-
zuk’s TV comments and a campaign was waged against her. She received numerous death threats. Wydawnictwo Literackie had to hire bodyguards to protect her and Tokarczuk dropped out of public view for months. “I was very naïve,” Tokarczuk says, reflecting on the furore.
Translated by Jennifer Croft, Olga Tokarczuk’s Nike Award-winning Flights will be published by Fitzcarraldo Editions on 17th May (£12.99)
14th March 2017
Photography: Krzysztof Dubiel
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