Slawomir Mrozek is perhaps the best-known and the most widely performed contemporary Polish dramatist. His work is also often staged in Western European theaters. Mrozek's early dramas written in Poland dealt with the socialist experience in the manner of the Theater of the Absurd. They appealed to such a wide audience that the phrases "straight from Mrozek" or "Mrozek himself could not invent that" were colloquially used to describe real-life situations. His later work, written during the thirty years he spent abroad, is more universal in orientation and ranges from commentaries on the experience of exile and contrasting studies of Western and Eastern European mentalities to attempts to analyze the human factor in the historical process. Since his return to Poland in 1996, he has continued his career there as a leading dramatist, widely read feuilletonist, and author of popular satirical drawings.

Born on 29 June 1930 to a postmaster family...