Tomasz Piątek started his media career as a junior teenager. He was twelve when he became the host of a TV programme addressed to children. He graduated from Universita' degli Studi in Milan, Italy in applied linguistics. After his return to Poland he worked as a journalist in the well-known weekly Polityka and as a local correspondent for the Italian journal La Stampa, also for radio stations RMF, Inforadio, and Radiostacja. The commercial TV station Canal Plus hired him as an expert - specialist in analysis of human personality on basis of pronunciation.
As the main subject of his writing, Tomasz Piątek lists evil:

Piatek - evil 0'47

Anka had a career thanks to an energy drink. Her company did the PR for the manufacturer. Anka invented something which turned out to be a huge hit. Her idea was sold to all local branches of the drink manufacturer, and Anka became the head of the PR company in Poland.
Anka's idea was a winner because it complied with two basic criteria. The first thing was that it showed that the drink made human minds brilliant, creative, and full of surprises. The other thing was that it was a very novel idea.
Anka, you see, invented a conspiracy. Its members were to transform reality as we know it into something completely different.
Practically speaking, this meant that when someone opened a rubbish bin, a swarm of helium-filled balloons would fly out.
The benefits of such actions were not exclusively ideological. The members of the conspiracy, like members of any conspiracy, communicated via headquarters and a website. The headquarters told them where and when they could carry out another action and with whom they were going to do it. More specifically, each member was told to go to a fashionable club, order a cocktail with the energy drink in it, wait until they were recognized thanks to the drink, and look for others who ordered the same cocktail.

In the years 1997 to 1999 (although whether he has managed to break the habit completely is not fully certain, if we are to believe Piątek's interviews) he was addicted to heroine. Writing became for him a remedy to fight the addiction which became in turn the subject of his first novel Heroine.
The novel was largely based upon writer's own biography - as he stated in an interview 30% of the text are situations which did happen and 70% situations which could have happened. Although some of Piątek's friends claimed they recognized themselves in the novel, it is not a realistic autobiographical fiction.
Heroine is not just a drug in the novel. It grows to become a literary heroine in her own right which takes control over the characters who finally become her embodiments. Piątek offers also an innovative vision of Warsaw - a city suffering from heroine hysteria which sooner or later engulfs everyone regardless of age, sex or social role.

The next stage of the conspiracy was that all those involved, once they had recognized each other and got together, went to another club where they had to order more energy drink cocktails so that anyone who was in the know about the conspiracy could recognize them. Together they went to yet another club where they ordered yet another round so that someone who knew where the necessary tools were hidden could recognize them. By that time they were so full of energy that they would be pleased to carry out any task they were asked to.
For a long time the mythical headquarters of the conspiracy was indeed Anka herself. Using e-mails and text messages she controlled the whole conspiracy from her office. When she became the director of the whole company, the task passed to someone know as called Pawełek. And then she started building a new head office for her company.
During our first lunch it turned out that Anka lived just one floor above the restaurant. Consequently, we could reach her apartment very quickly. Immediate we entered the apartment she lay down on a mattress. She lay down comfortably but not in the sense that it was comfortable for her but so that it would be comfortable for me to lie on top of her. She never did anything that would be pleasant for her, only such things which she found advisable for some unknown reasons.

Heroine won quite an acclaim, Tomasz Piątek became a public figure, he gave numerous interviews for the press and he was repeatedly invited to radio and TV stations. The interviews and discussions, however, concentrated on the issue of drugs and drug-addicts. The book was treated as a pretext to discussions concerning a social problem which otherwise is too often hidden from the public. Probably, it was also caused by the fact that Piątek doesn't give a clear moral teaching in the book. The novel may be read as a warning but also an invitation.

This time she wanted to meet me in a fashionable restaurant downtown. I didn’t want to meet her there. So I suggested another place, further south. And then another one and then another one. Finally, we met in a restaurant located in some old stables. And the stables were near the southern boundary of the city, near the swamp.

- I love you
- I don’t know what to say
- Say “I love you”.
- I can’t, you know that I can’t.
- You can.

She looked pale, Such meetings were always very difficult for her.

You can. You can and you must. You must do something with your life.
- My life is perfect.
- Your life is not a life at all. You don’t have anyone, you don’t know anyone, you don’t meet anyone. You don’t do anything, you have no plans, and you don’t shop for anything interesting.
- How do you know?
- Maybe I told some people from the conspiracy to follow you? Tell me, how can you bear it? Nothing changes in your life. You don’t work because you don’t have to any more. You don’t have a wife, no children. You do the same thing every day, you walk around in circles. And you walk in a place where nothing ever changes.
- Ania, let me try to explain this once more. You see, I got to know God. I need nothing else. That’s the way it is when you know God. Don’t blame me for that. God is someone who made you. When you realize it’s a gift, that you might never have existed at all... Then you don’t want anything more, just to enjoy the gift. You just want to be and you need nothing else.
- But you can be a lot more than that.
- I hope you will once feel what I am talking about. Maybe you should tell what your life is like. How’s your conspiracy?
She turned even paler.
- It’s gotten out of control.
- Something like this cannot get out of control.
- But it did. – She closed her eyes. – Not all of them got out of control, just a few.. First they stopped fulfilling the tasks which we gave them. They stopped meeting in the clubs we chose for them, and that was a problem. It was not only important that they should buy our drink but they should do it in appropriate places, where they would be seen. They were especially selected – young, handsome, bright, everyone was expected to admire them and see what they drunk. But they stopped visiting the clubs with which we had contracts. They stopped recognizing each other with the use of our drink and established other channels of communication. In fact, they stopped drinking altogether!
- Well, that’s a tragedy.
- No. The tragedy begins now. You see, they’ve started to murder people. They have started to kill.

The second novel written by Tomasz Piątek appeared just a few months after his debut. A Few Nights Away from Home was perceived by literary critics as an attempt to write a classic detective novel. It is a dark thriller about a psychopath serial killer. The action of the novel takes place also in Warsaw, this time presented as a world filled with violence in which solitary individuals desperately try to find a place for themselves. The book is very well-written and it further established Tomasz Piątek as a leading writer of the young generation although it did not make as much media splash as his debut.
Most critics failed to notice that in his writing Piątek is not only preoccupied with presence of evil:

Piatek - death 0'30

- They started setting the tasks for themselves. They have become out of control. To avoid fights with each other, they wrote on a piece of paper what they were to do and then they found a kind of a compromise. And that was dangerous.
- Dangerous? Why?
- Because, one time, one of them wrote that he wanted to hang people. But another of them wrote that he wanted to shine like a lamp. So, they arrived at the comprise - they would hang a lamp! But it could always be possible, occasionally, that two people wrote down the same thing.
- And then they would change their minds?
- They couldn’t. It was a challenge, some kind of Russian roulette.
- And this actually happened?
- I don’t know. But two of the boys are dead. They were found nearby, in the marsh. You know about them.
- How do you know?
- I told you. Some members of the conspiracy were assigned a very special, but secret task. They have to follow you around. It is an especially boring, special, secret task.
- Wonderful. So I am being followed by two prospective murderers. Anka, why did you do this?
- Because I love you. I love you and I had to know what you were doing. It is not very difficult, by the way, to follow you around as you don’t do very much.
- I walk a lot.
- But you walk without purpose. Now you have found an entertainment.
- I found a body.
- You did and you made it your entertainment. You know, you might really have found God because it takes some supernatural peace of mind to make a dead body into a toy. But it doesn’t matter. It’s awfully lucky that it was you who found it.
- Why?
- Because you know the policemen. If anything happens, you will know about it. And you will tell me. You will do that for me.
- Wait! What might happen?
- The police mustn’t know that the boys were members of our conspiracy. The press must not know. It would be a terrible blow to the image of the energy drink if anybody wrote that they killed each other because they had drunk too much of it.
- I am afraid the press will hear about it. These are murder cases...

The third novel which has finally been published since our interview was The Swamp. Tomasz Piątek agreed not only to select an excerpt for our program but revealed how the plot opens:

Piatek - Swamp 1'13

- This is not about murder. And nobody must know that the conspiracy exists, do you understand?
- Well, it’s just a form of promotion...
- It is a form a promotion which works only in secret. The boys mustn’t read about themselves in the newspaper. They mustn’t read about the conspiracy.
- They mustn’t know that the world knows about their secret?
- No. And they must never know about the secret themselves.
- What secret? The secret of the murders?
Anna saw that I couldn’t follow her.
- The secret of the promotion. They don’t even know it is a promotion. They don’t know that the point of it all is to make them drink as much as they can of the stuff. If any of them ever guessed, they would prefer not to think about it any more. The whole thing has became too important for them. They think the drink is just an identification. They think there is a real conspiracy.
- What do you mean – a real conspiracy?
- A real conspiracy which aims to change the world.
- What? With balloons in dustbins?
- With subtle changes of public space and a subliminal influence on the public’s imagination. They treated all the tasks seriously. That is why they included the killings.
- You... You share responsibility. In a way you share responsibility. You are partially responsible for their deaths.
- I knew you would say that. I knew everyone would say that. That is what the police will say. You have a policeman friend who supervises the case, don’t you? So when you hear anything... No, when you get the impression that the police have an inkling, you will let me know.
- Anka... You have just told me that I made a dead body into a toy.
- Yes, I have.
- So you made yourself a toy that kills.

Tomasz Piątek clearly wasn't fully satisfied with at least seemingly realistic novels. In 2003, he started publishing a fantasy trilogy entitled Emperor's Beloved Subjects including the following volumes: Vipers and Moles, Rats and Sharks and Elves and Men. The three novels take the reader to a place which is "somewhat worse than ours", a world of cruelty, violence, hopelessness and despair. The three books proved further Piątek's versatility as a novelist and brought him an even larger following.

Once, a long long time ago, when I hadn’t yet gotten to know God, I dreamt many a time about seeing Anka scared. Anka who begs me. Anka who needs my help. Anka on her knees. That wasn’t very nice, admitidly, but there are no nice ways to approach some people.
And she was begging me now. She didn’t use the word but I could see the begging in her eyes.
- But you will help me?
- No.
- OK, maybe I have done something wrong. I didn’t think it would end this way. But this is not only my fault! Just the responsibility is all mine. I cheated them a little. But that was just a promotional game.
- No – I answered. This wasn’t at all the way I had imagined this. It was begging but without devotion. She was ready to kneel, coil her arms around my legs,, but that still wouldn’t make her any closer to me.
- OK, maybe I have done something wrong. Maybe I am evil. But now I am alone. Everyone is against me. The police. The Press. My head office in London. The boys from the conspiracy. The drink. Even God. If I am really evil I have no one to pray to. Someone, Jesus, someone has to take my side. Just one person.
- And that person will be me?
- And that person will be you. You owe me a lot. You owe me a great deal. You don’t realize how much. You don’t understand what you did when you left me. “I found God”. “I can’t be with you, I don’t need to be with anyone”. You just don’t understand. You don’t understand because you are sick, really sick. Now do you understand?
- No.
- Why?
- Because, as you said, God is against you. And I am with God.
- I beg you.

Tomasz Piątek is currently involved in the first TV channel presenting only Polish films Kino Polska. He also works for one of commercial Warsaw radio stations and in an advertising agency which he established with his friends. He has just finished his seventh book in four year's time entitled Justine's Case. Piątek claims it is his best book. So far, we might want to add.

Excerpts from The Swamp were translated by Krzysztof Fordoński