A sociologist and philosopher by education, as well as an expert on arms and Silesian language and culture, Twardoch deals with the issue of identifying with one’s place of birth as well as with the problem of national identity: Polish, German, Silesian.
In his works, which have a clear and logical but at the same time surprising and complicated construction, he constantly balances on the line that separates reality from fantasy, psychology from realism, true history from alternate history. The world presented in Twardoch’s books is coherent, suggestive and it provokes reflections about the world we live in.
His novel Wieczny Grunwald (Eternal Grunwald) was honoured with the distinction of the Józef Mackiewicz Literary Prize. It was also nominated for the Gwarancja Kultury award. From among the few series of stories, the volume Tak Jest Dobrze (It’s Good This Way) was nominated for the Gdynia Literary Prize. In 2012, the writer received a Passport award from the weekly Polityka for the novel Morfina (Morphine).
The protagonist of Morfina, a Varsovian and a son of a German aristocrat and a Polonised Silesian woman, has a problem. The main character doesn’t know whether he is a Pole or a German. It is 1939 and this question is fundamental. Additionally, every woman he encounters makes him feel like a different person. Twardoch not only shows an unstable man influenced by women – the writer also speaks of the Polish identity, which also has a certain unstableness and weakness in it. The literary critic Dariusz Nowacki wrote:
We received an outstanding novel (not only in my opinion) – a somewhat crazy, but above all very bold study of male weakness and of a flexible national identity. The story is set in the realities of the first month of the German occupation. I tip my hat to Twardoch!
Piotr Kofta added:
On the grey, boring background of the identity analyses featured in Polish literature of the past years the grim grotesque of Twardoch’s 'Morfina' shines like a gem. In this daring story about a small, unstable person that is forced to play the part of a man, hero, Pole or German, there is something reminiscent of Witkacy and Gombrowicz, but also of Konwicki in top form.
The writer also received laurels for smaller forms. His short story Obłęd Rotmistrza von Egern (The Madness of Captain von Egern) was nominated for the Nautilus Award in 2003. The work finished in fourth place in a vote. Rondo (Roundabout) won a Nautilus Award for best short story in 2006. For Epifania Wikarego Trzaski (Vicar Trzaska’s Epiphany), the writer received a Silver Distinction of the Jerzy Żuławski Literary Award in 2008. Two years later his novel Przemienienie (Transfiguration) appeared in French.
Marcin Zwierzchowski wrote about the collection of short stories Tak Jest Dobrze in Polityka:
Twardoch is persistent at portraying a world filled with despair and suffering. Even if somebody laughs in this world, he or she does so through tears. There is something magnetic about these pessimistic visions. This magnetism brings to mind Cormac McCarthy, to whom Twardoch directly refers in the title story. The other works from the collection Tak jest dobrze reference the American author indirectly - through their style. The beauty of the language that Twardoch uses contrasts perfectly with the cruelty of the world, which gives the book a unique bitter-sweet flavour.
In 2014, Twardoch published his seventh novel – Drach. The title is Silesian for ‘kite’, but also ‘dragon’. The book made it to the finale of Nike Literary Prize, one of Poland's most important literary awards, and brought Twardoch the Kościelski Award – an annual prize for promising writers under the age of 40.
The novel is a family saga spanning over one hundred years, from the beginning of the 20th century to modern day. The stories of two Silesian families unfold against a backdrop of historical events. Set in a multilingual environment, the novel echoes with Polish, Silesian, German, and Russian. As Twardoch elaborated on the work in an interview for Dziennik.pl:
[…] The official Polish narrative stands in stark opposition to [Silesian] private stories. […] Silesians didn't have the chance to publicly share their personal accounts – even in the 1950s they were still at risk of being deported to a camp for saying such things. Having been excluded from the official narrative, they started constructing their personal histories – histories transmitted in secret, whispered rather than told. The thing is, these histories were always histories of particular people. Silesians didn't have one common oral history.
Drach was translated into Silesian by Grzegorz Kulik and published in October 2018.
