He is a two-time recipient of the Nike Award, the most important literary prize for Polish literature.

[1] He was born to a middle class family and raised in Ćmielów, where his father had participated in the Polish-Soviet War and became a local official after being demobilized.

From then until 1976, he worked on the editorial staff at the Ludowa Spółdzielnia Wydawnicza [pl] (People's Publishing Cooperative).

From 1976 to 1999, he was Editor-in-chief of the cultural quarterly Regiony,[3] and later contributed to the literary bi-weekly Sycyna [pl].

He is a two-time winner of the Nike Award[5] (Polish equivalent of the Booker Prize) for Horizon (1996) and A Treatise on Shelling Beans (2006).