Dorota Masłowska (b. 1983) - writer, playwright, feuilletonist. Her debut novel Polish-Russian War under White-Red Flag (2002) was one of the loudest debuts in Poland in the first decade of the 21st century. The Queen’s Spew, published after two years, brought her one of the most important literary award “Nike”. Dorota’s musical album The Society Is Mean was released in 2014, under the pen name „Mister D.” Both of her plays: A Couple of Poor, Polish-Speaking Romanians (directed by Przemysław Wojcieszek, 2006) and All is Right Be- tween Us (directed by Gregory Yazhina, 2009) were written for the theatre TR Warszawa.
Dorota is one of the most staged authors in Poland. One of her poems was staged for eight times, and another one for nine times. Adaptations of her novels and even culinary feuilletons have been staged number of times too. Masłowska’s works have also been staged in Germany, Sweden. Russia, Australia and The United States. Today the author still works with the TR Warszawa theatre.
WE EXIST ON THE BEST TERMS WE CAN
(excerpt from the play)
TV HOST: So the life of a star is not all as one would think – whee and coochie-coo with a polyester cat on a red carpet, but...
MONIKA: Honestly...? ... it’s hard work. There were times when after a whole day of monotonous non-eating, non-drinking, followed by non-pissing and non-shitting, and non-sweating in between, ... I was so squashed, stretched and weary that I’d lie down on the Photoshop couch, too weak to go to the house I was too tired to remember I didn’t have, because I didn’t exist, and for days and nights on end I lay there waiting for someone to come along and unsquash and unstretch me, not to mention the phantom pain I had after having my navel removed... And yet I owe a lot to not existing and not being... On the one hand I’m nobody, but then again, I’m not Polish.
TV HOST: If that’s the case, your Polish is excellent - you speak it with hardly any accent at all.
Translated from Polish by Artur Zapałowski