Author Guide · Literary Fiction
Books Written by
Olga Tokarczuk trained as a clinical psychologist in Warsaw and worked as a therapist before her first novel appeared in 1993. Fourteen years later Bieguni, a book of 116 fragments about travel, won Poland’s Nike Award; in English, as Flights, it won the Man Booker International Prize in 2018, the first win for a Polish writer. A year later the Swedish Academy gave her the delayed Nobel Prize in Literature for 2018, for “a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life”. Most of her fiction is rooted in Lower Silesia, the borderland where she lives. This guide covers her eight key books, in order, and where to begin.
By Lisanne Swart · 8 key books · 2002–2025 · Updated October 2026
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Quick answer
Eight of Olga Tokarczuk’s books are available in English. The best known are Flights (2017), winner of the Man Booker International Prize, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (2018), The Books of Jacob (2021) and The Empusium (2024). Start with Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, a murder mystery that carries her ideas in a plot you can follow, then decide how far into the larger books you want to go.
Where to Start with Olga Tokarczuk
If you want a plot that pulls you along
→ Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (2018) — a village murder mystery with a narrator you cannot fully trust.
If you want the book that won the Booker
→ Flights (2017) — 116 fragments about travel and the body.
If you want her great historical novel
→ The Books of Jacob (2021) — 912 pages on the false messiah Jacob Frank.
If you want a family saga in a mythical village
→ Primeval and Other Times (2010).
8 Olga Tokarczuk Books, in Order
House of Day, House of Night
Published in Polish in 1998 as Dom dzienny, dom nocny and her first book in English, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones. An unnamed narrator settles near Nowa Ruda, by the Czech border, next to Marta, an elderly wigmaker who knows which mushrooms feed you and which kill you. Around them run local histories, including the medieval legend of Kummernis, a woman who grows a beard to escape an arranged marriage. It was shortlisted for the International Dublin Literary Award in 2004.
Primeval and Other Times
Published in Polish in 1996 as Prawiek i inne czasy, the book that made her name in Poland; the English translation by Antonia Lloyd-Jones followed in 2010. Primeval is a village at the centre of the universe, guarded by four archangels, and the novel follows the Niebieski family and their neighbours from 1914 to around 1980. Each short chapter is the “time” of one character, human or not, through two world wars and communism.
Flights
Published in Polish in 2007 as Bieguni, named after a sect of Old Believers who held that constant motion kept evil away; it won the Nike Award in 2008. A traveller narrates 116 pieces, from one sentence to 31 pages, mixing invented stories with true ones, such as Chopin’s sister carrying his heart back to Warsaw. Jennifer Croft’s translation won the 2018 Man Booker International Prize, shared between author and translator, and was a finalist for the US National Book Award for Translated Literature.
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead
Published in Polish in 2009 and translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones. Janina Duszejko, a retired teacher who reads horoscopes and translates William Blake, looks after summer houses in a village near the Czech border. When local hunters start dying, she tells the police the animals are taking revenge. It was shortlisted for the 2019 International Booker Prize, filmed by Agnieszka Holland as Spoor (2017), which won a Silver Bear in Berlin, and staged by Complicité in 2022–2023.
The Books of Jacob
Published in Polish in 2014 as Księgi Jakubowe, after seven years of writing, and widely seen as her magnum opus. Over 912 pages and seven books it follows Jacob Frank, an 18th-century Polish Jew who claimed to be the messiah, through dozens of people around him, from Rohatyn in 1752 onwards. It won the Nike Award in 2015; Jennifer Croft’s translation was shortlisted for the 2022 International Booker Prize.
The Lost Soul
A picture book with illustrations by Joanna Concejo, published in Polish in 2017 as Zgubiona dusza and in English in 2021, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones. It tells of a man who has worked so fast for so long that his soul has fallen behind him, and who has to wait for it to catch up.
The Empusium
Published in Polish in 2022 as Empuzjon and translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones. In 1913 a young student, Mieczysław Wojnicz, arrives at the tuberculosis resort of Görbersdorf in Silesia, now Sokołowsko, where the men in his guesthouse talk endlessly about women while something in the forest watches them. It answers Thomas Mann’s The Magic Mountain; an author’s note says the men’s misogynist lines paraphrase real Western writers and thinkers. It was longlisted for the 2026 International Dublin Literary Award.
Mr. Distinctive
Her second picture book with the illustrator Joanna Concejo, published in Polish in 2023 as Pan Wyrazisty and in English in 2025 by Seven Stories Press, translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.
In What Order to Read Olga Tokarczuk
None of her books continue one another, so order is a matter of appetite. The English publication order also scrambles her career: House of Day, House of Night reached English readers first, and Primeval and Other Times, two years older in Polish, only in 2010. Each description above gives the Polish year.
A sensible route is to begin with the two novels that tell a clear story, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead and Primeval and Other Times, move to the fragments of Flights, and keep The Books of Jacob for when you have time for a long book. The Empusium reads best if you know a little about The Magic Mountain.
A reading path
1. Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (2018)
2. Primeval and Other Times (2010)
3. Flights (2017)
4. The Empusium (2024)
5. The Books of Jacob (2021)
Everything Else Olga Tokarczuk Published
Beyond the 8 key books: 10 more, grouped by kind.
Open a group with the + to see every book in it.
Novels not yet published in English
5
5 books · 1993–2026
- 1993Podróż ludzi Księgiher first novel, The Journey of the Book-People
- 1995E.E.her second novel
- 2004Ostatnie historieFinal Stories, three generations facing death
- 2006Anna In w grobowcach świataAnna In in the Tombs of the World, a retelling of the myth of Inanna
- 2026Świata jest za dużoher new novel on post-war Lower Silesia, due from Wydawnictwo Literackie on 14 October 2026
Stories and essays in Polish
5
5 books · 1997–2020
- 1997SzafaThe Wardrobe, three stories
- 2001Gra na wielu bębenkachPlaying on Many Drums, nineteen stories
- 2012Moment niedźwiedziaThe Moment of the Bear, essays
- 2018Opowiadania bizarneBizarre Stories
- 2020Czuły narratorThe Tender Narrator, essays and lectures including the Nobel lecture
The years · 1962–2026
Quick facts about Olga Tokarczuk
- Known for
- Novels that cross borders of every kind, between countries, genres, species and centuries, which earned her the Nobel Prize in Literature for 2018.
- 1962
- Born in Sulechów, western Poland
- 1993
- First novel, Podróż ludzi Księgi
- 2026
- Halldór Laxness International Literary Prize
- Born
- 29 January 1962, Sulechów, near Zielona Góra, Poland
- Education
- Clinical psychology, University of Warsaw (1985); worked as a psychotherapist 1986–1989
- Lives
- Between Wrocław and Krajanów, near Nowa Ruda in Lower Silesia, since 1998
- Translators
- Antonia Lloyd-Jones and Jennifer Croft
- Prizes
- Nike Award 2008 and 2015; Man Booker International Prize 2018; Nobel Prize in Literature 2018
- Foundation
- Olga Tokarczuk Foundation, Wrocław, set up in 2019
- Role
- Vice President of PEN International since 2025
The red mark is 2014: The Books of Jacob, her novel about Jacob Frank, published in Polish.
How Olga Tokarczuk Writes: Constellations, Not Straight Lines
She calls some of her books “constellation novels”: instead of one plot, many short pieces arranged so the reader sees the pattern. Flights is 116 fragments in one traveller’s voice; Primeval and Other Times gives each chapter to the “time” of a single person, angel or object; House of Day, House of Night mixes a neighbour’s life with saints’ legends and local history.
Her training as a psychologist shows in how she handles the past. The New Yorker’s Ruth Franklin called her a “psychotherapist of the past”, and her books return to the parts of Polish history that are least comfortable: Jewish life and its destruction in The Books of Jacob, the borderland of Lower Silesia, emptied and resettled after 1945. Her animal-rights convictions drive Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead.
In her Nobel lecture, “The Tender Narrator”, she described the voice she aims for: a fourth-person narrator able to see all the characters at once, and tenderness as the way literature gives a voice to everything it describes, even a teapot. The omniscient narrator of The Empusium is a recent example.
Watch
Olga Tokarczuk in her own words
In the official Nobel Prize interview, recorded in Stockholm on 6 December 2019, Tokarczuk talks about her life and writing and reads from Flights.
Frequently asked questions about Olga Tokarczuk’s books
How many books has Olga Tokarczuk written?
In Polish she has published ten novels, with an eleventh, Świata jest za dużo, due on 14 October 2026, plus story collections, essays and two picture books. Eight of her books are available in English, and all eight are on this page.
What are Olga Tokarczuk’s books in order?
In English: House of Day, House of Night (2002), Primeval and Other Times (2010), Flights (2017), Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead (2018), The Books of Jacob (2021), The Lost Soul (2021), The Empusium (2024) and Mr. Distinctive (2025). In Polish the order is different: Primeval (1996) came before House of Day, House of Night (1998).
Where should I start with Olga Tokarczuk?
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead. It is a murder mystery with a clear plot and a narrator you cannot fully trust, and it carries her main themes in a form that is easy to enter. If you prefer something less conventional, try Flights.
What is Olga Tokarczuk’s most famous book?
Internationally, Flights, which won the Man Booker International Prize in 2018. In Poland, and for many critics, her magnum opus is The Books of Jacob, which won the Nike Award in 2015 and was shortlisted for the International Booker in 2022.
Why did Olga Tokarczuk win the Nobel Prize for 2018 in 2019?
The Swedish Academy postponed the 2018 prize after a scandal around one of its members. On 10 October 2019 it announced two laureates at once: Tokarczuk for 2018 and Peter Handke for 2019. She gave her Nobel lecture, “The Tender Narrator”, in Stockholm on 7 December 2019.
Has Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead been adapted?
Yes. Agnieszka Holland filmed it as Spoor (Pokot, 2017), which won the Alfred Bauer Prize, a Silver Bear, at the Berlin International Film Festival. The theatre company Complicité toured a stage version from December 2022 to June 2023.
Why was Olga Tokarczuk criticised in Poland?
After winning the Nike Award for The Books of Jacob in 2015 she said in a television interview that Poles had “committed horrendous acts as colonizers, as a national majority that suppressed the minority”, and named slave-owning and the murder of Jews. She received hate mail and death threats, and a nationalist association in Nowa Ruda demanded that the town revoke her honorary citizenship. She answered that she was a true patriot.
Who translates Olga Tokarczuk into English?
Two translators: Antonia Lloyd-Jones (House of Day, House of Night, Primeval and Other Times, Drive Your Plow, The Empusium and the picture books) and Jennifer Croft (Flights and The Books of Jacob). Croft shared the 2018 Man Booker International Prize with her.
Is Olga Tokarczuk still alive?
Yes. She was born on 29 January 1962 in Sulechów and lives in Lower Silesia. In 2026 she won the Halldór Laxness International Literary Prize, and her new novel, about the post-war resettlement of Lower Silesia, is due in Polish on 14 October 2026.
Is The Books of Jacob hard to read?
It is long, 912 pages in seven books, and told through dozens of characters rather than one hero, which takes patience. Reviewers praised it all the same: Marcel Theroux in The Guardian called it “dense, captivating and weird”.
Footnotes
- Olga Tokarczuk — Wikipedia
- Olga Tokarczuk bibliography — Wikipedia
- The Books of Jacob — Wikipedia
- When an Author You Translate Gets Death Threats — Jennifer Croft, Literary Hub
- The Tender Narrator, full Nobel lecture — TVN24
- Tokarczuk unveils title of new novel — Polskie Radio, 2026
Bibliography last verified 9 October 2026. Where sources give different first-publication years, this page uses the year in library catalogues or the publisher’s own record.
This list was not put together by a machine.
The notes are all mine,
and the books are all his.
Lisanne x
Written by Lisanne Swart, who has curated reading lists and author guides at lisanneswart.com since 2021.
See more on her personal bookshelf.
“Tenderness is the most modest form of love.”
— Olga Tokarczuk, Nobel lecture “The Tender Narrator” (Stockholm, 2019)
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