Paweł Huelle, author of the famous “Weiser Dawidek”, as well as the novels “The Last Supper” and “Sing the Gardens”, died on 27 November 2023. He was 66 years old. Huelle was the recipient of the Kościelski Foundation Award and the Passport of “Polityka”. Two years ago, he received the Pomeranian Literary Award „Wind from the Sea”.

For years, he has been counted among the small group of the most critically acclaimed and at the same time most popular Polish writers. His novels have had a magnetic effect. His debut novel „Weiser Dawidek”, published in 1987, was filmed by Wojciech Marczewski in 2000.

The excellence of this prose was first appreciated by such well-known critics as Jan Błoński and Jerzy Jarzębski. As soon as this work was published, Paweł Huelle became one of the most brilliant praisers of Gdańsk, a multicultural, multilingual, and Polish-German city of the past and today. The plot of many of his works, not only novels, but also short stories are set in the scenery of Gdańsk.

Paweł Huelle was born in Gdańsk on 10 September 1957 and studied Polish philology at the University of Gdańsk. In 1980-1981 he worked in the Press Information Office of “Solidarity”, during martial law he was employed as a Polish language teacher, he also edited books in one of the publishing houses on the Coast. He published, among other things, in “Creativity” and “Star of the Sea”. In 1987, he took up a job at the Department of Philosophy of the Medical University of Gdańsk, and a year later he was among the founders of the magazine “Spoken Points”.

His best books include: “Mercedes-Benz. From Letters to Hrabal” (2001), “Castorpa” (2004) and “Tales of the Cold Sea” (2008). In 2005, Paweł Huelle was featured – together with well-known Gdańsk citizens: the novelist Stefan Chwin, the poet Władysław Zawistowski, the theatre scholar Jerzy Limon, the painter Kiejstut Bereźnicki and the priest Stanisław Jankowski – in Maciej Świeszewski’s painting The Last Supper.

Adrian Andrzejewski