One of the most important voices in fantastique literature, Stefan Grabinski, was born in the small town of Kamionka Strumilowa, Poland on 26 February 1887. Not part of any literary clique or movement, he suffered for his originality and the limitations imposed on him by being a writer in a country that did not fully recognize his work or take it seriously. Sickly and suffering from bone tuberculosis at an early age, Grabinski became seduced by the supernatural and introverted explorations into the mysteries of life. For his daily bread, he worked as a teacher in a secondary school, but his passion was writing strange fictions that focused on his atypical concerns and interests. Though he was regularly published in Poland and received attention for his train collection, Demon ruchu (The Motion Demon), Grabinski remained a marginal figure in his native land and was not part of any fashionable literary school or clique. Upon his death in 1936 (from tuberculosis), he was almost completely forgotten. In recent decades there has been a resurgence of interest in his work, and he is now becoming internationally acknowledged as a master of the weird tale, with short stories collections published in translation in various languages.