Tadeusz Dołęga-Mostowicz

was born in 1898 to a Polish family in the village of Okuniewo (present-day Belarus). After studying law at the University of Kiev, Dołęga-Mostowicz moved to Warsaw in 1918 following Poland’s regaining of its independence. He initially pursued a career in journalism (writing for, among others, the “Rzeczpospolita” daily), before quitting and becoming a full-time novelist. In 1932, Dołęga-Mostowicz published “The Career of Nicodemus Dyzma”, which was serialized in newspapers and became an overnight sensation. This success enabled him to write two novels per year, from which he made a handsome income up until his death in 1939 during a skirmish with the Soviet Red Army in Poland.