Rafał A. Ziemkiewicz

Rafał A. Ziemkiewicz
Born Rafał Aleksander Ziemkiewicz
(1964-09-13) September 13, 1964
Piaseczno, Poland
Occupation Writer
Genre Political fiction, science fiction, journalist

Rafał Aleksander Ziemkiewicz (born 13 September 1964 in Piaseczno) is a Polish political fiction and science fiction author and journalist.

Biography

Science-fiction writer

During his studies at the University of Warsaw (Polish language and literature) in 1984 he joined SFAN science fiction fan association and started writing short stories. His first science-fiction short story (Z palcem na spuście) was published in 1982. His book debut was Władca szczurów (Warsaw), (1987). He also worked for two Polish science-fiction magazines: Fantastyka (1986–1990) and as a chief editor for Fenix (1990–1994), and collaborated with an underground publishing house "STOP" by distributing its books at the Department of Polish, University of Warsaw.

In the 1990s, he became one of the most popular Polish science-fiction authors. For his novels Pieprzony los kataryniarza (1995) and Walc stulecia (1998), as well as his short story Śpiąca królewna (1996), he was awarded the Zajdel Award, the most prestigious Polish award for science fiction and fantasy literature. He was also awarded Śląkfa for Writer of a Year in 1990 and 1998.

A popular theme in his works is the fate of Poland and more broadly, Europe, in the near future (from several to several dozen years). His books often paint the future in dark colors, showing the Commonwealth of Independent States disintegrate into a civil war, European Union becoming powerless in the face of Islamic terrorism, and predatory capitalism and political correctness taken ad absurdum leading to the erosion of morality and ethics. Thus his books are often classified as political fiction and social science fiction, although they are not seen as dystopian fiction.

Journalist and publicist

After the fall of communism, Ziemkiewicz became a conservative journalist and essayist. He began this career in the early 1990s as a publicist for Najwyższy Czas! weekly magazine. Until February 1997, Ziemkiewicz wrote political and socio-economical essays for Gazeta Polska (1993–1997). He was also a columnist of popular Polish magazine Wprost (2001–2003) and the Polish edition of Newsweek (2003–2007), and occasionally published essays in Polityka. Currently his columns are being published in Rzeczpospolita, Uważam Rze, Gazeta Polska, Niezależna Gazeta Polska and Interia.pl webportal.

He was also a radio journalist, working for Radio WAWA and Polskie Radio Program IV in the 1990s, Radio TOK FM in the early 2000s, later with Radio VOX FM and Program 1 Polskiego Radia. He hosts TV talkshow on TVP Info and a program on TVP Historia.

Many of his essays have been collected and published in book format. In 2001 he won the Kisiel Prize.

His essays are sometimes controversial. In September 2006, Ziemkiewicz published an article in the Polish edition of Newsweek criticizing the editor-in-chief of Gazeta Wyborcza, Adam Michnik; Michnik brought a civil suit against Ziemkiewicz, which was settled in 2007 after Ziemkiewicz agreed to publish an apology.[1]

He was a spokesman for the Real Politics Union (Unia Polityki Realnej) party (1993–1994). In 1995 as a stipendiary of the National Forum Foundation he worked for the Republican Party in United States.

In September 2014 Ziemkiewicz took a stand in an alleged rape case (alleged at the time of writing) by a Catholic monk in Poland on a 19-year-old girl (whom he got drunk and then took to a hotel room and proceeded to have sex with the unconscious teenager). On his Twitter account Ziemkiewicz adapted a quote from John, 8:7 "Cast the first stone" to incite that only those who have never sexually abused a drunk woman could comment on the issue. He then proceeded to imply that it is indeed acceptable and in fact encouraged behaviour to do so. He proceeded in his quest to offend as many people outraged by his stand as possible with follow up Tweets, interviews and Facebook posts, which resulted in an extremely right-winged magazine (Fronda.pl) and very left winged journal (Gazeta Wyborcza) joining voices in condemning his words and actions.

Bibliography

Fiction

Non-fiction

Awards

Preceded by
Andrzej Sapkowski		 ESFS award for Best Author
1997 		Succeeded by
James White

References

  1. ↑ "Rafał Ziemkiewicz przeprosi Adama Michnika" (in Polish). Gazeta Wyborcza. 2007-03-01. Retrieved 2009-07-09.
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