We are pleased to welcome Jakub Szamałek to Brussels for the launch of the French edition of his latest novel La Station (original title Stacja). The event will take place at LIBREBOOK in Ixelles on 4 October 2025 at 18:30.

The literary discussion will be led by Kamil Barbarski, translator of the author’s works from Polish into French.

Recently published in French by Éditions Métailié and translated by Kamil Barbarski, The Station is a space thriller with global powers in the background and a plot that feels disturbingly plausible. What would happen if something went wrong in a place where Earth’s laws no longer apply? The novel unfolds aboard the International Space Station, where an investigation into an ammonia leak exposes growing tensions among the multinational crew.

As always, Szamałek brings meticulous research to his fiction. His knowledge of space exploration is woven into the story so smoothly and accessibly that while reading The Station, you may find yourself feeling like a NASA engineer.

Publication history

• Stacja (original title), 31 May 2023, Poland, GWFoksal

• Inner Space (trans. Kasia Beresford), 15 July 2025 (US), 28 August 2025 (UK), HarperCollins Publishers

• La Station (trans. Kamil Barbarski), 3 October 2025, France, Éditions Métailié

Jakub Szamałek (*1986) is a writer and screenwriter at CD Projekt RED (creator of The Witcher video game series). He studied at Oxford and holds a doctorate in Mediterranean archaeology from the University of Cambridge, supported by a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation scholarship.

He is the author of a detective trilogy featuring the Athenian investigator Leochares, for which he received the Wielki Kaliber Readers’ Award (2011) and the Wielki Kaliber Award (2016). Together with Maria Pawłowska, he co-authored the children’s book Kim jest ślimak Sam? (Who Is Sam the Snail?), now part of the Museum of Children’s Books collection. Szamałek was also named one of the “New Europe 100” young leaders of Central and Eastern Europe by Res Publica, Google, and the Financial Times.

His first three novels published in France – Tu sais qui (European Youth Literary Prize 2024), Datas sanglantes (Libr’à Nous Prize 2024), and Saturation totale – were widely acclaimed.

Meet the Author: Jakub Szamałek
Launch of the French edition of “Stacja” (PL)
Moderator and translator: Kamil Barbarski
Discussion in French, English, and Polish
4 October 2025, 18:30
LIBREBOOK – The European Multilingual Bookshop in Brussels
Chaussée de Wavre 128, 1050 Ixelles
Free entry