Tadeusz Bradecki’s bookshelf (Photo: Ray Sims)

“So, we could say that the text chats with another text, imitates it, mocks it and plays with it. Licentiousness reigns in the kingdom of narration. Books meet one another, they travel together, they even sail together to some island – Kythera – there they become lovers, and they have offspring.” — Tadeusz Bradecki, The End of Ends

The Tadeusz Bradecki Prize is named in honour of Tadeusz Bradecki, the international theatre director, actor and writer, and celebrates the books that most excited him.

The prize is not meant to mirror his book The End of Ends (CB editions, 2024). Instead it will applaud works that are just as eclectic, thoughtful and playful.

ABOUT TADEUSZ BRADECKI

"I am writing a letter and I immediately find myself in a literary situation." — Tadeusz Bradecki, The End of Ends

Tadeusz Bradecki (1955-2022) was an international theatre director, actor and writer. He was born in Zabrze in Silesia, Poland. He studied at the State Drama school in Kraków and later with Grotowski and Peter Brook at the famous Theatre of Nations workshops in Wrocław in 1975. He went on to direct over 100 shows all over the world in theatre and opera. As well as being made the Director of the National Theatre (Stary Teatr) in Kraków, and the Słąnski Teatr in Katowice, he directed 13 shows at the Shaw Festival Theatre in Canada and also worked in the US, UK, Italy, France, Romania and Korea. His numerous awards include the Chevalier des Ordre des Arts et des Lettres in France, the Konrad Swinarski award and the Silver Gloria Artis Medal for services to culture in Poland, and the Director’s Award at the Mess International Theatre Festival, Sarajevo. As an actor, he was nominated for the main prize at Cannes in 1980 for his role in the film Konstans (The Constant Factor), which was written for him. He also won the Leon Schiller Award and the Golden TV Award. He performed in over 40 films, directed by Krzysztof Kieślowski, Krysztof Zanussi, Andrzej Wajda and Stephen Spielberg. He was Associate Professor at the State Drama school in Kraków and wrote essays for the literary publication Dialog for over 20 years. He was the author of several award-winning plays including The Pattern of Metaphysical Evidence, Saragossa, In the Sandpit, and Nocturne. Tadeusz’s book, The End of Ends, a combination of essays, enquiries and a novel, was written in the last year of his life. It was published in Poland by Żywosłowie Press in 2021 and by CB editions in the UK in May 2024.

TADEUSZ’S READING

Tadeusz was a polymath and read voraciously from a very young age, absorbing thousands of books in five languages: Polish, English, Italian, French and Russian. He often finished several in a week, including plays, poetry, and all types of fiction.  He also loved non-fiction – essays, philosophy, history, art, geography, politics, books about the theatre, and travel.

He was as happy reading Raymond Chandler, Ursula K. Le Guin, Jan Potocki, Robert B. Parker, Dostoevsky, Timberlake Wertenbaker, Gombrowicz, Mary Shelley, A.A. Milne, Yasmina Reza, Shakespeare, Stanisław Lem, Goldoni, Borges, Byron, Flann O’Brien, Dante, Aphra Benn, China Miéville, Rilke, Marguerite Duras, Büchner, Bulgakov, Beckett, Robert Silverberg and J.G. Ballard, as he was poring over Marci Shore, Walter Benjamin, Stephen Greenblatt, St Augustine, Patrick Leigh Fermor, Peter Brook, Umberto Eco, Mary Wollstonecraft, Ryszard Kapuściński, John Gray or Timothy Snyder. 

“In the beginning was the beginning which was incipit but what if one was to start from the end?” — Tadeusz Bradecki, The End of Ends

Tadeusz was very curious and explored everything he could through the written word. He loved making connections, rambling joyously through texts, and discovering ways in which they might engage with each other.

“Texts come from Texts. They feed on texts.” — Tadeusz Bradecki, The End of Ends

The Tadeusz Bradecki Prize honours books that would have excited him as a reader – the rare gems that are hard to categorise.