Czyżewski, born in Warsaw in 1958, is a practitioner of ideas, writer, translator, publisher and director. Co-founder of the Borderland Foundation and the Center "Borderland - of arts, cultures, nations" in Sejny and the International Center for Dialogue in Krasnogruda, on the Polish border to Lithuania,. Professor at the University of Bologna. Animator of intercultural dialogue in various borderlands of the world.

For his last book of essays, W stronę Xenopolis (Towards Xenopolis), he was awarded the Ambassador of New Europe Award. In May 2021, he was awarded the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth Prize by the parliamentary assemblies of Lithuania and Poland.