Tadeusz Dołęga-Mostowicz was a Polish writer, journalist and author of over a dozen popular novels. One of his best known works, which in Poland became a byword for fortuitous careerism, was The Career of Nicodemus Dyzma. Literary historians believe the book inspired the 1971 novel Being There by Jerzy Kosiński, with some charging Kosiński with plagiarism, which sparked considerable controversy in the West.