The bio-travel allows to see anew the places considered familiar and uninteresting, as if to inhabit them once again. “Micro-world!”, “Coral reef!”, “City within a city!” – these are typical reactions to closely examining the bark of a tree under a magnifying glass, exploring a vast hollow or a lawn. These expressions suggest the sensation of a change of location, a presence in another part of the world or even a journey. They are often accompanied by surprise: “I’ve lived here for so many years and I didn’t know!” That’s why a biodigest can start anywhere, anytime. The bio-travel differs from the increasingly common sensory walks in that the aforementioned walks put man and his senses, the senses of pleasure, at the center. One may get the impression that the worlds encountered are not important, that only the human experience matters. Biodróż does not exclude the enjoyment of smells, light and textures, however, in the center of perception and interpretation it places the encountered Others: insects, birds, plants. Therefore, biodróż, is also a way of life, spent on regular walks and excursions, during which there is a repetition of the same movements that bring satisfaction and even happiness. Bios from the Greek also means a way of life.
Michal Ksiazek (born 1978 in Oraczewo) is a Polish poet, reporter, cultural expert, forest engineer and ornithologist.
He has published in “Polityka”, “Les Polski”, “Twórczość”. Contributor to the quarterly “Przekrój”.
Nominated for the 2014 Gdynia Literary Award in the essay category for his book Jakuck. A Dictionary of Place. Winner of the 2015 Wroclaw Silesius Poetry Prize in the debut of the year category for Science of Birds. For this volume, he was also nominated for the 2015 Nike Literary Award and for the award in the 11th National Literary Contest “Golden Mean of Poetry” 2015 for the best debut poetry book of 2014.
For his reportage Droga 816 he was awarded the 2016 Gdynia Literary Award in the essay category, the Wieslaw Kazanecki Literary Award of the President of the City of Bialystok for the best book of 2015 and the 2016 Magellan Award. “Droga 816” also brought nominations for the 2015 Ryszard Kapuscinski Award for Literary Reportage, the 2016 Warsaw City Literary Award in the prose category, the 2016 Beata Pawlak Award. In 2018 the book was published in German translation.
In 2018 Ksiazek was awarded the Mazurian Orpheus for the poetry volume North East.
In 2024 he was honored with the Warsaw Literary Award.
