Polish writer and journalist Anna Bikont, one of the most influential voices in contemporary Polish literary reportage, has been nominated for the Nike Literary Award – Poland’s most prestigious literary prize – for her latest book, “Nie koniec, nie początek. Powojenne wybory polskich Żydów” (“Not the End, Not the Beginning: The Postwar Choices of Polish Jews”).
Bikont is an award-winning writer and journalist renowned for her long-standing work documenting Jewish history in Poland and exploring the fate of Holocaust survivors in the years following the war. Her books combine meticulous journalistic research with sensitive literary writing and address questions of memory, responsibility, identity, and history.
Two of her most important works have been published in Hebrew by Carmel Publishing House: “We from Jedwabne: The Crime and the Silence: Confronting the Massacre of the Jews in Wartime Jedwabne,”, which examines the 1941 pogrom carried out by the residents of Jedwabne against their Jewish neighbors, and “Sendler. In hiding”, a biography of the Polish Righteous Among the Nations, Irena Sendler. Both books were translated into Hebrew by Miriam Bornstein.
Last November, Bikont was a guest at the Library of the Polish Institute in Tel Aviv for a conversation with publisher and patron of Polish culture in Israel Dani Tracz. During the event, she spoke about her investigative work, the challenges of historical documentation, and the role of literary reportage in shaping the collective memory of Polish Jews after the Holocaust. A recording of the meeting, conducted in Polish, is available on the Polish Institute’s YouTube channel.
The winner of the 2026 Nike Literary Award will be announced in October at a ceremony in Warsaw.