This story is featured in EPISODE 84 (click to listen)
Piotr Surmaczynski
Born in 1970 in Opole, Poland, he is an author, playwright and journalist who lives in London, UK. His YouTube channel “Piotr Surmaczynski z Londynu” has gained considerable popularity not only in Britain but all over the world. It has two parts: Nasza emigracja and Komentarze polityczne.
His debut play, Uciekający pociąg (Runaway Train), opened in Newcastle in 2012 and preceded his first collection of short stories Wyspa dreszczowców (Thriller Island), which was published under the Novae Res imprint in Gdynia in 2014.
He earned degrees in political philosophy from Oxford University and graduated from the National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw. He is currently a PhD student at the Pułtusk Academy of Humanities in Poland.
Surmaczyński has contributed to a range of periodicals, including New Londoners, 2B North East, Nowa Politologia (New Political Science) and Polityka Globalna (Global Politics).
He lives and works in London.We talk about his life and work as well as emigration and his feelings about Poland and being Polish.