Draft:Tomasz Jedrowski

Tomasz Jędrowski is a Polish writer born in the Federal Republic of Germany.

His 2020 literary debut, Swimming in the Dark, published in the Polish language as Płynąc w ciemnościach, is a gay love story set in the final years of the Polish People's Republic. It was subject to a "hotly contested" six-way publishing auction, from which Bloomsbury gained rights. Swimming in the Dark has been praised for the quality of its writing and its treatment of LGBTQ themes. It received a starred review from Publishers Weekly, and was longlisted for the HWA Debut Crown.

Jędrowski was born in Germany, educated in England, and subsequently lived in France. He speaks Polish, English, French, German and Spanish. He typically writes in English. Jędrowski identifies as gay. His parents' accounts of the final years of the Polish People's Republic informed the novel.

Jędrowski cites the expulsion of Michel Foucault from Poland in 1958 as a formative event. He commented that "there's a lot of anxiety being channeled into this topic [LGBT rights in Poland], a lot of fear-mongering and propaganda" but that Swimming In the Dark is not only about homophobia, against which he writes "to revive, to resuscitate, the queerness that had been silenced". The novel is also, he said, "an homage and celebration of Polish culture, and the beauty of nature there".