The world-famous Polish playwright and prose writer Slawomir Mrozek (b. 1930) sums up the preliminary results of his life in Belshazzar. Having recovered from a serious illness, the writer retrieves from his memory pictures of his childhood, youth, first creative successes in his homeland, right up to his departure to emigrate. The reader is presented with a personality of exceptional magnitude, revealing himself frankly and without embellishment. As A. Libera writes in the preface, “Slavomir Mrozek, who has always been interested in the problem of identification (national, social, cultural), with admirable courage and tenacity, used his own illness to consider the fundamental problem of personal self-identification. What do we mean when we talk about ourselves “I”? What does it actually mean to feel like “you”?” This book is not only a self-portrait, but also a colorful picture of a large fragment of recent, so eventful history.