A couple of weeks ago Jacek Dehnel had an article in Polityka in which he described his visit to Vienna. This week it’s Michał Witkowski’s turn: he was in Jerusalem and writes an interesting piece on it, on Polish-Jewish relations and on stereotypes. Here are the last lines: “What is the truth? What is a […]
What with Sylwia Chutnik, Michał Witkowski and Dorota Masłowska’s Między nami dobrze jest, I’ve had quite a run of luck with books and plays by young writers lately. It’s not all good news on the young writing scene, though. Take novelist Jacek Dehnel (b. 1980), who wrote an article for Polityka a couple of weeks […]
Olga Tokarczuk, my most favouritest writer of them all, has an article in the latest Polityka. It’s travel literature, my most favouritest genre of them all. She’s been to China: “His [Mao’s] face is found in the most unlikely places: on the walls of buildings–” Hold on, hold on a minute there. The wall of […]
I despatched Ukraine a few weeks ago. Epic though the travelogue was, panoramic and sweeping in its grandeur, it turns out that my deft, broad brushstrokes that summed up an entire country in a series of arresting images left out a few minor details. Here comes Daniel Olkowicz in this week’s Polityka with his impressi—errr, […]
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, […]
I complimented Beatroot for predicting a rapprochement between PO (Civic Platform) and PiS (Law and “Justice”) the other day. But now the nearly-ruling PiS looks like it’s getting into bed with Lepper’s Samoobrona (see previous post). Political commentators in Poland seem to be in the enviable position that any prediction they make – any at […]
William Dalrymple is a hard man to pin down, as befits an award winning travel/history writer who has written about the Middle East, Asia and in particular India. A couple of tentative interview arrangements are scuppered through travel plans – but when we finally manage to get hold of him, the conversation is well worth […]
