Inspiration Forum: Katarzyna Surmiak-Domańska

Katarzyna Surmiak-Domańska (1967) is a Polish reporter, writer and teacher in Mariusz Szczygiel’s Institute of Reporting – a place for writers focused on Polish reportage. She studied romance languages at the University of Warsaw. Since 1995, she has been working for the Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper, in which she publishes reports that do not avoid controversial topics related to sexuality. Her main focus is on the distortion of the notions of traditional family and values, which is a very serious and sacred issue in Poland. Many of Surmiak-Domańska’s texts tell the stories of transvestites, transgender people, gay men, and lesbian women who raise children. But she is also interested in the stories of sexual abusers, pedophiles, and Polish nationalists. On the subject of nationalism, she published Ku Klux Klan. Tu mieszka miłość (The Ku Klux Klan. Love Lives Here), which is her fourth collection of reportages, published in Poland in 2015