(b. 1944) – prose-writer, playwright and screenplay writer.

He made his debut at forty years old with a very well-received volume of prose containing two mini-novels: Stankiewicz and The Return. Readers were delighted by the stand-out plot and old-world narration, recalling the classic prose of the 19th century. The plots of these two stories are set in the Russian civil war, while the flashbacks bring us to events of 1863 (the January Uprising). Rylski returned to the Russian setting for his novel Man in the Shadow. The action of this piece takes place at the beginning of the 90s in Warsaw, and the protagonist is a lawyer going on forty, a Pole with Russian roots. The complicated history of the Russian ancestors of the main protagonist form a separate layer of the novel in the past. In the ‘contemporary’ layer, a mystery takes center stage. The lawyer is working for the Russian Mafia and is caught up in a dangerous psychological game; his opponent is his own employer, the boss of a dangerous mob. This novel was given the prestigious Józef Mackiewicz Literary Award in 2005. In the same year another novel appeared that delighted the critics and enchanted readers – "The Condition". The protagonists of this work are two officers of Napoleon’s army: an aristocrat with the rank of captain and a first lieutenant, the son of the impoverished Orthodox Pope from a godforsaken village. The action of the novel comes together in September 1812 just outside of Moscow. This work is not historical prose in the pure sense, nor is a swashbuckling novel a la Dumas or Sienkiewicz. This is a work about a difficult friendship, and simultaneously about the hatred that unites two sturdy men; a work about honor, devotion, bravery and overpowering emotions.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

• Stankiewicz. Powrót, Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1984.
• Tylko chłód, Warszawa: Państwowy Instytut Wydawniczy, 1987.
• Człowiek w cieniu, Warszawa: Świat Książki, 2004.
• Warunek, Warszawa: Świat Książki, 2005.
• Wyspa, Warszawa: Świat Książki, 2007.
• Po śniadaniu, Warszawa: Świat Książki, 2009.
• Na Grobli, Warszawa: Świat Książki, 2010.
• Obok Julii, Warszawa: Wielka Litera, 2013.
• Szara lotka, Warszawa: Wielka Litera, 2014.

TRANSLATIONS

French:

• Le colonel Stankiewicz (Stankiewicz), trans. Robert Bourgeois, Malgorzata Zamojska-Sabater, Montricher: Noir sur blanc, 1991
• Le retour (Powrót) trans. Robert Bourgeois, Montricher: Noir sur blanc, 1996
• La Condition (Warunek), trans. Maryla Laurent, Noir sur Blanc, 2009

Lithuanian:

• Sąlyga (Warunek), trans. Kazys Uscila, Vilnius: Mintis, 2008