Witold Szabłowski

(Poland, 1980) studied journalism and political science in Warsaw. After an internship at CNN in Istanbul he wrote a series of reports about Turkey for the Polish daily newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza; some of this material formed part of his acclaimed essay collection Zabójca z miasta moreli (Assassin from Apricot City). In it, Szablowski provides a nuanced portrait of a society torn between East and West, Islamism and Islamophobia, the desire to belong to Europe and an aversion to all things European. He always chooses a particular angle; for example, he went looking for the story behind the shoe thrown at George W. Bush by an Iraqi journalist. In 2010, his reportage Dziś przypłyną tu dwa trupy (Two Bodies Washed Up Today), about immigrants trying to reach Europe via Istanbul, won the Journalism Prize of the European Parliament. At the invitation of the Flemish-Duch cultural organization Huis de Buren (Neighbours' House), Szablowski wrote Alle poorten van Lublin (All the Gates of Lublin), a literary portrait of the Polish city of Lublin.