Zbigniew Herbert was a Polish poet, essayist, drama writer and moralist. He is one of the best known and the most translated post-war Polish writers. While he was first published in the 1950s, soon after he voluntarily ceased submitting most of his works to official Polish government publications. He resumed publication in the 1980s, initially in the underground press. Since the 1960s, he was nominated several times for the Nobel Prize in Literature. His books have been translated into 38 languages.

The Zbigniew Herbert International Literary Award is a Polish international literature prize established in 2013 in Warsaw and named after a Polish poet, essayist, and moralist Zbigniew Herbert (1924–1998). It is conferred annually by the Zbigniew Herbert Foundation and its aim is to recognize "outstanding artistic and intellectual literary achievements on the world stage which have a bearing on the world of values towards which Zbigniew Herbert’s work gravitated".