In this essay, the author tries to establish the order of literary forms undertaken by Olga Tokarczuk and indicate the moment when she reached for the essay. According to the author, the essay has become a substitute or auxiliary genre for her. Considerations typical of the discursive parts of poems, while looking for a larger space, found it in the essay. Subsequently, these essayistic attempts began to demand the possibility of even more elaborate imagery, becoming a bridge between short stories and an extensive novel. Olga Tokarczuk took the essay very seriously, treating it as a testing ground for the emerging style and maturing thought. The author discusses the three essay books of the writer, pointing to their similarities and differences, as well as the visible develop­ment in the scope of the topics he undertakes, which at the beginning concerned psychology, mythology, literature, and then ecology, philosophy of culture and feminism. Thus noticed, the evolution of interests and views led the essayist to a deep social and political commitment.