City Books

Writer, poet, essayist and literary critic Andrzej Stasiuk was born Warsaw in 1960. After being expelled from secondary school he was involved in the early 80s with the peace movement and had to spend a year and a half in prison after having deserted from the army in a tank. After his release he started to write for underground newspapers. His first book, The walls of Hebron, was a collection of stories about his experiences in prison and reached a cult status. Stasiuk didn’t like the hectic life of Warsaw and moved to an isolated hamlet in 1987 in the Karpaten where, together with his wife, he has run the independent publishing house, Czarne, since 1996. Since he debuted in 1992, Stasiuk has grown to become one of the most important authors of his generation in Poland. His novel, The white raven was an international bestseller. Andrzej Stasiuk has won many literary prizes both in his own country and abroad.