Adam Hochschild, in his 1994 New York Review of Books review of Ryszard Kapuściński’s Imperium, writes (this is a back-translation from the Polish) “His latest book is less fantasmagorical than the previous ones because he does not have to hide behind allegories” — as was the case when he was writing under communism. Much has […]
Cudowna Melina (Wonderful Drinking Den) by Kazimierz Orłoś is an interesting case of a book that requires a certain knowledge of its times to be fully appreciated. Written in Communist Poland (1971), it is, to say the least, schematic. You can almost guess the pattern: an idealistic young party apparatchik comes to town and cleans […]
There was a stick but there was carrot too. Among the ways in which the Communist authorities in Poland tried to keep writers and creative types in line was by introducing in 1978 a tax free allowance of 144,000 zł per annum for them. This at a time when the average monthly wage was 4 […]
Ukraine is a land of contrasts. No wait – the past is a constant companion in Ukraine. Or how about Ukraine is the Montana of Europe? A trip to Ukraine is a trip back in time? Awful stuff but people seem to like it. According to Google Chile, Guinea (“the Switzerland of Africa”), Kansas, Jamaica, […]
Aleksander Wat was a precocious young fellah. He wrote “JA z jednej strony i JA z drugiej strony mego mopsożelaznego piecyka” (I from one side and I from the other side of my little herring-iron oven) at the age of 14 and a short story “Lucifer Unemployed” in his early 20s. With a title like […]
A character called Jakub Sosnowski has gone into business in Poland selling cog notes for ignoramuses. That is: you pay him and he tells you what such and such a book is about or what such and such a record is like. In this way you can shine at social gatherings to which you have […]
“Sometimes publishers get texts which have not been properly read, even by their own authors – books in a terrible state,” says editor Filip Modrzejewski in this week’s Polityka. It’s worse than that, Mr. Modrzejewski. Sometimes readers get books that even the authors haven’t read. The picture painted in the article is dispiriting. For one […]
Pokaz prozy (Prose Display) is, as reviewers have pointed out, a curious book. It aims to showcase good modern Polish prose (12 writers born more or less in the period 1945 to 1960, all of whom have already achieved success). What it displays is, in fact, the weakness of modern Polish prose. To begin with […]
Tuesday’s Gazeta Wyborcza has a review of two books. The subhead reads: “These two books are crying out to be read in tandem — both were written by Englishmen fascinated by the history of Russia. Can a resident of the British Isles penetrate the darkness of the Russian soul?” Funny how no one ever asks […]
“I like it when they beat up students,” he confessed with a smile. I didn’t go so far but I agreed that in America, France and West Germany they had it too good and it wouldn’t do them any harm to get a bit of a kick up the hole. Who could this charming humanitarian […]
