Born on 16 May 1920 in Warsaw, in a middle-class, Polish-Jewish, bourgeois family. In 1937, he graduated from the A. Kreczmar Gymnasium in Warsaw, and in the years 1938-1939, he studied architecture at the Academie des Beaux-Arts in Paris. At the time, he developed his fascination with jazz music. After the outbreak of the war, he managed to get to Vilnius, which was handed over to the Lithuanians. After the start of the occupation of Lithuania and Vilnius by the USSR, he worked for the Polish-language daily “Prawda Komsomolska”, the organ of the Lithuanian Communist Youth Union in 1940-1941. In April 1941, he was arrested and sentenced to 8 years in prison for his ties with a group of Polish pro-independence conspirators. He was saved by Germany’s attack on the USSR, escaping from a shelled transport on 22 June 1941. Most of his family were killed during the Holocaust. After Vilnius was captured by the Germans, he volunteered in 1942 to go to Germany as a labourer (he worked as a manual worker, waiter, draughtsman, stoker, sailor in Mainz, Wiesbaden, Frankfurt am Main, Vienna, until mid-1944). He attempted to flee to the neutral Sweden, but was caught and sent to a concentration camp in Norway. After the war, he spent a year in Norway working for the International Red Cross and as a Polish press correspondent. In the spring of 1946, he returned to Poland via Denmark. In later years, he became one of the most colourful figures of the cultural and intellectual life of the post-war Poland, which he pictured in the form of a pamphlet in his novel Życie towarzyskie i uczuciowe (A Social and Emotional Life) (1967). Journalist and contributor to “Express Wieczorny”, “Słowo Powszechne”, employee of “Przekrój” in 1947-49, and after his dismissal, theatre reviewer of “Tygodnik Powszechny” (1950-53). A great enthusiast and populariser of jazz, he organised the earliest jazz concerts in Poland. He earned his popularity by the novel Zły (published in English as The Man with White Eyes) (1955). After his problems with censorship, and especially after the latter prevented his Życie towarzyskie i uczuciowe from being published, he left Poland in 1966. After travelling around Europe, fascinated with America, he settled in the USA, where he became associated with the neoconservative movement. He earned his popularity with his essays published by “New Yorker” (1967-71). Over time, his anti-communism and criticism of the liberal American cultural establishment conflicted him with influential media and milieus, which Tyrmand accused of left-wing inclinations and restricting the freedom of speech. For similar reasons, he discontinued his collaboration with the Parisian “Kultura”, which he represented in the USA. From 1971, he lectured at the State University of New York in Albany and was a senior lecturer in Slavic Literature at Columbia University. From 1976, he was deputy director of the conservative Rockford College Institute, and editor of its publications. He published Chronicles of Culture and The Rockford Papers. In 1967, he was rewarded by Wiadomości, and in 1980 by the Freedom Foundation. He died on 19 March 1985 in Fort Myers, Florida. His output includes: Zły (The Man With White Eyes) (1955), Gorzki smak czekolady Lucullus (The Bitter Taste of Lucullus Chocolate) (1957), Życie towarzyskie i uczuciowe (A Social and Emotional Lif) (1967), Dziennik 1954 (Diary 1954) (1980), essays: U brzegów jazzu (On the Border of Jazz), Civilization of Communism, Notebooks of a Dilettante (1970, published in Poland as Zapiski dyletanta in 1991), The Rosa Luxemburg Contraceptives Cooperative. A Primer on Communist Civilization (1971).