was born in 1971 in Warsaw. He studied architecture at the Warsaw University of Technology. After three years he interrupted his studies to establish the Powergraph ad agency with his wife (in 2004 it was transformed into a publishing house). He is an illustrator and prose writer, the author of stories and novels for young people and adults. He has published in Nowa Fantastyka and Science Fiction, as well as the Fahrenheit and Esensja web journals. In 2012 his novel Felix, Net and Nika and the Theoretically Possible Catastrophe was brought to the silver screen (the script for the film of the same title was co-written by Wiktor Skrzynecki).

He made his debut with the short story “Transit Rooms,” printed in 2001 in Nowa Fantastyka. In 2003 he published his first novel: Mars. The next book, Vertical (2006), won the Nautilus readers’ poll and – also in 2007 – was nominated for the J. Zajdl Award, which the author ultimately received two years later for another novel, The Chameleon (for which he also received the J. Żuławski Literary Award, also in 2009). Since 2004 his name has chiefly been associated with a series for young adults: Felix, Net and Nika.

Rafał Kosik’s prose is in the genres of science-fiction, dystopia, horror, and adventure with a bit of detective novel thrown in for good measure. We see these conventions pile up most clearly in his novels and stories about a trio of teenage friends (Felix, Net and Nika), students at a middle school in Warsaw, whose day-to-day life is forever being interrupted by unexpected events, requiring them to think analytically and logically, and to show a high degree of ingenuity. The author often makes his protagonists travel through time, bringing historical, futuristic, and even oneiric plots into their adventures. The young people’s world is not separate from the world of adults; on the contrary, it is a parallel reality, a world-in-a-world, as the teenagers’ problems in school and their private lives reflect those we find in an adult society (politics, history, interpersonal relationships – some romantic). This parallel quality can also be seen in the author’s grotesque, never infantile sense of humor, often with a touch of satire.

Rafał Kosik describes a different sort of reality in his four dystopian novels for adults: Mars (2003), Vertical (2006), The Chameleon (2008), and The Rosary (2017). Cast into a catastrophic vision of the future, the protagonists move about closed cities (Vertical and The Rosary), trying to combat structures that destroy all freedom and independence. Their enemy is the system, and highly advanced technology, monitoring their every step, their every movement. Mars and The Chameleon involve space travel and utopian societies threatened by the specter of annihilation. A key aspect of the plot is the psychological creation of the protagonists, whose actions are often unpredictable and surprising.

The books of the Amelia and Kuba series also stick to the adventure genre blended with the mystery novel, but are written for slightly younger children. The books’ protagonists live in an apartment block outside of Warsaw: eleven-year-old Amelia and Kuba, with Amelia’s older brother and Kuba’s younger sister. They discover mysterious events in the world surrounding them, strange things whose meaning and cause they must establish. These novels also bring in subjects tied to the development of digitization or social exclusion, describing them in a way that is accessible to young readers without talking down to them.

Katarzyna Wójcik

Most important publications:

Short story collections:

• Obywatel, który się zawiesił (pub. Powergraph, 2011)
• Nowi ludzie (pub. Powergraph, 2013)

Novels:

• (pub. Powergraph, 2003, 2009)
• (pub. Powergraph, 2006)
• (pub. Powergraph, 2008)
• (pub. Powergraph, 2017)

Felix, Net i Nika series:

• Felix, Net i Nika oraz Gang Niewidzialnych Ludzi (pub. Powergraph, 2004)
• pub. Powergraph, 2005)
• Felix, Net i Nika oraz Pałac Snów (pub. Powergraph, 2006)
• Felix, Net i Nika oraz Pułapka Nieśmiertelności (pub. Powergraph, 2007)
• Felix, Net i Nika oraz Orbitalny Spisek (pub. Powergraph, 2008)
• Felix, Net i Nika oraz Orbitalny Spisek 2: Mała Armia (pub. Powergraph, 2009)
• Felix, Net i Nika oraz Trzecia Kuzynka (pub. Powergraph, 2009)
• Felix, Net i Nika oraz Bunt Maszyn (pub. Powergraph, 2011)
• Felix, Net i Nika oraz Świat Zero (pub. Powergraph, 2011)
• Felix, Net i Nika oraz Świat Zero 2. Alternauci (pub. Powergraph, 2012)
• Felix, Net i Nika oraz Nadprogramowe Historie (pub. Powergraph, 2013)
• Felix, Net i Nika oraz Sekret Czerwonej Hańczy (pub. Powergraph, 2013)
• Felix, Net i Nika oraz Klątwa Domu McKillianów (pub. Powergraph, 2014)
• Felix, Net i Nika oraz (nie)Bezpieczne Dorastanie (pub. Powergraph, 2015)

The Amelia i Kuba / Kuba i Amelia series:

• Amelia i Kuba. Kuba i Amelia Godzina duchów (pub . Powergraph, 2014)
• Amelia i Kuba. Kuba i Amelia. Nowa szkoła (pub . Powergraph, 2015)
• Amelia i Kuba. Stuoki potwór (pub . Powergraph, 2016)
• Amelia i Kuba. Tajemnica dębowej korony (pub . Powergraph, 2017)

Translations:

• Felixas, Netas ir Nika bei Nematomųjų Gauja – Felix, Net i Nika oraz Gang Niewidzialnych Ludzi into Lithuanian, pub. Vaga, 2006
• the short story Mars (a fragment of the novel) – in the Polish/German album Star City, pub. Fototapeta, 2007
• – into Czech, pub. Laser-books, 2009
• Felix, Net a Nika: Gang Neviditelnych – Felix, Net i Nika oraz Gang Niewidzialnych Ludzi into Czech, pub. Albatros, 2009
• Félix, Net, Nika és a Láthatatlan Emberek Bandája – Felix, Net i Nika oraz Gang Niewidzialnych Ludzi into Hungarian, pub. Pongrác, 2011
• the short story Telefon – in the Russian anthology Głos Lema, 2016