Jozef Mackiewicz was born in Saint Petersburg, Russia. In 1907 his family moved back to Wilno (Vilnius) (today Lithuania) - his family was Polish-Lithuanian gentry. Mackiewicz studied natural sciences and before the Second World War he worked as a journalist in the Wilno Słowo (The Word). Between October 1939 and May 1940 he was a publisher and editor-in-chief Gazeta Codzienna, Polish language daily in Lithuanian-ocuppied Wilno. In his articles Mackiewicz tried to start dialog between Lithuanians and Lithuanian Poles. After annexation of Lithuania by Soviet Union, he worked as a laborer. In 1942 he was a witness of massacre of Jews by Nazis in Ponary - he described this event in his book Nie trzeba glosno mowic {It should not be spoken loudly). In 1943 (with consent of Polish authorities) he assisted in the first excavations of the mass-graves of the Polish soldiers killed by Soviet NKVD in Katyn 1940.
His prose is extremally realistic - Mackiewicz believed there were no untouchable subjects. In 1957 Mackiewicz published Kontra, a narrative account of the particularly brutal and treacherous handover of thousands of anti-Soviet Cossacks by British soldiers in Austria.
Amongst others he wrote: Droga do nikąd (The Road to Nowhere), Zwyciestwo prowokacji (Victory of provocation), W cieniu krzyza (In the shadow of the cross).
His voluminous output as a writer of fiction and a publicist has been undergoing an unusual revival after many years of marginal interest.