Polish Book Club

in Seattle

"Reverse" - Official Film Website

Andrzej Bart

The story of the book takes place in an alternate universe where the First World War never occurred and Poland is still under Russian rule. Following the Tunguska event, the Ice, a mysterious form of matter, has covered parts of Siberia in Russia and started expanding outwards, reached Warsaw. The appearance of Ice results in extreme decrease of temperature, putting the whole continent under constant winter, and is accompanied by Lute, angels of Frost, a strange form of being which seems to be a native inhabitant of Ice. Under the influence of the Ice, iron turns into zimnazo (cold iron), a material with extraordinary physical properties, which results in the creation of a new branch of industry, zimnazo mining and processing, giving birth to large fortunes and new industrial empires. Moreover, the Ice freezes History and Philosophy, preserving the old political regime, affecting human psychology and changing the laws of logic from many-valued logic of "Summer" to two-valued logic of "Winter" with no intermediate steps between True and False.

Jacek Dukaj

Krasko is a reporter working as an international correspondent from places such as Rwanda & Congo or New Orleans after Katrina. The book conveys impressions from these difficult assignments from 1996 to 2007.

Piotr Kraśko

"Bambino" takes its title from a milk bar in Szczecin, formerly Stettin , which was well known in the years after World War II for its fast and (more importantly) affordable food. For this reason, many children are among its patrons - and the author, who also lives in Szczecin, tells their story. "Inga Iwsiow's novel is a psychological story of rootlessness in post-war Poland set in the city of Szczecin," says Pawel Szwed, Publishing Director at Świat Książki. "It is very truthful, and very mature from a literary point of view."

Inga Iwasiów

Jozef Hen, 87, is a Polish novelist, essayist and biographer. Tadeusz (Boy) Zelenski (1874-1941) was a famous cabaret writer, theater critic as well as publisher and translator whose translations of great French literature into Polish are still unsurpassed in the mastery of the art.

Józef Hen

"She is one of the great actresses of our times", wrote a reviewer of Philadelphia's "Public Ledger". "Calm and composure is her method. Not a touch of hysteria in the hottest explosions. She has a shocking power, made even greater by her allowing only a part of it to expose itself on the stage. A wonderfully expressive face. There is so much grace and truth in her movements and she expresses so much through her body that she would be able to clearly and accurately convey the movements of her thoughts through pantomime alone" (after Józef Szczublewski, "Zywot Modrzejewskiej", Warszawa 1975). More..

Helena Modrzejewska

Maria Janion is a very well known Polish writer, essayist and critic and a Professor of Literature at the Polish Academy of Sciences. Bohater ... discusses cultural roots of Polish perception of Jews and Jewish culture.

Maria Janion

PO ŚNIADANIU - Eustachy Rylski, Świat Książki, 2009

Po śniadaniu is a collection of seven intimate essays about literature - books and writers who fascinated the author. Eustachy Rylski is a contemporary writer, playwright and screenwriter.

Eustachy Rylski

FABRYKA MUCHOŁAPEK, Andrzej Bart, Wydawnictwo WAB, 2008

In September 1939 the Germans appointed Chaim Rumkowski President of the Łódź Judenrat. Rumkowski was a Jewish entrepreneur and an excellent administrator, who rapidly changed the poor, overpopulated Łódź ghetto into a perfectly, if inhumanly organised production zone. The President fought for the survival of the majority, so he always chose the “lesser evil”: when the Germans demanded an increase in production, he increased it; when they demanded that the sick be given up for transportation, he gave them up; when they demanded that he hand over children under the age of ten, he handed them over. He reckoned the Jews’ economic usefulness was their only bargaining chip, stronger than the Germans’ anti-Semitism and their plans for the Holocaust plans. More...

Andrzej Bart

Balzakiana is a set of four stories based loosely on Balzak's works. Dehnel, 29, is an accomplished writer, poet, painter and TV personality; his work won such prestigious awards as the Koscielskis' (2005) and the Polityka Paszport (2006)

Jacek Dehnel

Tarnowski has penned a stunning multigenerational family memoir, reaching back into the past to recount the vanished lifestyle of his grandparents, his parents' harrowing World War II experiences, and his own coming-of-age as a displaced person. The aristocratic Tarnowski family cut a wide swath through the semifeudal social fabric of late-nineteenth and early-twentieth-century Poland. Landed gentry, they owned and operated a gracious agrarian estate that housed and fed relatives, servants, and numerous peasant families. But as World War II loomed, the extended clan began to unravel at a rapid speed. When Germany invaded Poland, the author's parents escaped via Romania and Palestine, setting into motion a tragic chain of events that foreshadowed the dissolution of both the family and their increasingly archaic way of life. Achingly beautiful and bittersweet, this intimate family chronicle reads like a novel.

Andrew Tarnowski

Marcin Świetlicki, "Trzynaście", Wydawnictwo EMG 2007

The book is a gloomy story of crime and love over 13 days in May 2006.Marcin Swietlicki, "the most rebellious poet of his generation" published five books of poetry, winning many awards; his side line of crime novels has brought him praise both by critics and readers.

Marcin Świetlicki

Krzysztof Varga, "Nagrobek z lastryko", 2008

Present-day 30-year-olds will become grandparents in the future. And their grandchildren, after many years, may also stare at a grandparents' photo from around 2005, just like the narrator of "Terrazzo Tombstone", the best novel written yet by Krzysztof Varga. It is as melancholic as the previous ones, but much more witty. Varga has written an inverse family saga. Consecutive generations in his novel instead of collecting memorabilia and cultivating traditions (like, for example, the characters of Dehnel's "Lala") live - as Varga says - for nothing.  More..

Krzysztof Varga

Maria Janion, "Niesamowita słowiańszczyzna", 2008

Maria Janion's essays are devoted to problems of Slavic identity and issues related to its development, such as visions of pagan Slavdom, Slavic aesthetics, mythology, and their functioning in the European awareness.

Analyzing cultural and literary trends, the author tries to find a place for Slavism in the awareness of today's Europe, and also to determine what in fact the Slavic identity is in its original and contemporary version - also in its renounced and rejected version. More...

Maria Janion

Manuela Gretkowska, "Obywatelka", 2008

The book is a diary of the writer going politician and establishing a feminist party before the 2007 election in Poland.

About the author: A novelist, she was born in Lodz in 1964. She graduated from the Jagiellonian University in Cracow with a degree in philosophy and went to Paris in 1988 to study medieval anthropology at the École des Hautes Études Sociales in Paris. More...

Manuela Gretkowska

Andrzej Bart

Zagajewski is one of the best known contemporary Polish poets and for many a Nobel Prize candidate. His visit to Seattle in 2005 gathered crowds of local admirers. Dwa miasta is a book of remembrances about two cities - mythical Lvov & native Gliwice.

More about Adam Zagajewski

Adam Zagajewski

This book describes adventures of a makeup artist Eryk Stamelmann before, during and after WWII. Stefan Chwin is a literary critic, essayist, novelist and illustrator based in Gdansk, Poland.

 About Stefan Chwin

Stefan Chwin

Bieguni examines modern nomads in our complicated societies. This book has been nominated to the 2008 Nike awards.

More: about the book, Olga Tokarczuk

Olga Tokarczuk

"It is a tale about the quite difficult lot of a literary gastarbeiter. The book is full of apt observations, witty thoughts and unsophisticated humor."
The author

Andrzej Stasiuk

The book for the meeting is Kurier z Warszawy by Jan Nowak-Jezioranski published by Znak in 2005. Jezioranski was the legendary courier of the Polish WWII resistance as well as a person important in shaping Polish fate well into 1990s. He was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom in the US and with the Order of the White Eagle in Poland. This recount of his WWII exploits as a resistant fighter and an envoy for the Home Army reads like a great thriller.

English translation: COURIER FROM WARSAW By Jan Nowak. Illustrated. 477 pp. Detroit: Wayne State University Press. $24.95

Interesting book review in New York Times : The Polish connection by Jan Kott

Zdzisław Jeziorański (Jan Nowak-Jeziorański, 1914-2005) jako podchorąży altylerii konnej, 1937 r.

DON JUAN RAZ JESZCZE / DON JUAN REVISITED is Andrzej Bart's bold reinterpretation of the legend of Don Juan the seducer, intertwined with the macabre story of the love of Queen Joanna of Castile for the corpse of King Philip the Handsome. The background for the tale is provided by the byways, castles and monasteries of Spain, taverns full of cutpurses, cursed places, torture chambers, but also a library on a par with the one from THE NAME OF THE ROSE as well as an alchemist's laboratory where heresy and magic flourish next door to the terror of the Inquisition. more ...

Andrzej Bart

Wladyslaw Bartoszewski is a fascinating person with impeccable credentials: an Auschwitz prisoner, resistance fighter, a prisoner of the communist regime in 1950s, then a dissident working on reconciliation between Poland and Germany and finally a university professor who became a minister of foreign affairs in 1990s.

Władysław Bartoszewski

Michał Witkowski

Jacek Fedorowicz, 70, is a very well know comedian, both as an author and as an actor, who made his name as a radio personality and then a movie star. PasTVisko is a set of short and frequently vitriolic texts published as a syndicated column.

Jacek Federowicz

Jacek Dehnel is an accomplished writer, poet, painter and TV personality; his work won such prestigious awards as the Koscielskis' (2005) and the Polityka Paszport (2006). Rynek is a set of 6 short stories with fluid narrative and surprising turns.

Jacek Dehnel

The action of Pawel Huelle’s newest novel takes place in Gdansk, during a single day, in the indescript, but not too distant future. The city has undergone some substantial changes; a couple of streets have again switched names, mosques have sprung up near churches, the lives of the residents are sporadically paralyzed by mysterious explosions—in which some see the workings of Islamic fundamentalists, others the workings of a madman, while others still suspect sabotage by the producer of Monsignore brand wine. More ...

Paweł Huelle

This charming, nostalgic book is by a very young writer, poet and painter who comes from a fairly typical Polish “upper class” family; its roots are in the landowning aristocracy, and it has many international connections. Part of the family is from the former eastern borderlands of the pre-war Polish Republic, and part from central Poland. From one generation to the next the landowners become the intelligentsia: writers, artists and engineers or senior officials. It happens in dramatic circumstances; in the background we see a revolution, two wars, the rise and fall of the communist regime, and the extinction of the landowner culture. Dehnel tells us the history of his own family and the whole of Polish society, but makes his grandmother the main narrator – a woman with a wonderful, intriguing personality and enormous character. More

Jacek Dehnel

A collection of exquisite reports on the Czechs entangled in their times. Czechoslovakia and today`s Czech Republic - Gottland - is a grotesque country of horror and sadness. Mariusz Szczygieł`s Gottland is not a stereotypical tale featuring happy-go-lucky people who bind their time drinking beer.
Lida Baarova, actress - the woman who made Goebbels cry; Otakar Szvec, sculptor - creator of world-largest statue of Stalin, who decided to kill himself before his work was finished; an authentic niece of Franz Kafka who still lives in Prague; Marta Kubiszova, singer - the Communist regime banned her from singing for 20 years and erased archive radio recordings of her songs; Tomas Bata - legendary shoe manufacturer who built a town fully - controlled by himself ten years before George Orwell`s suggested a similar idea; Eduard Kirchberger, writer - he created himself anew and became Karel Fabian; and many others - those are the characters portrayed in this book. By presenting their unusual lives, Mariusz Szczygieł gives account of the times in which they (and we) have lived. He shows the high price they had to pay for seemingly unimportant decisions and the tragic combination of chance and fate affecting the lives of whole generations. (from Wydawnictwo Czarne)

Mariusz Szczygieł

Marek Krajewski

 As a bonus, the meeting included viewing oil paintings by Joanna Brzostowska.

More about Olga Tokarczuk

Olga Tokarczuk

Lem, who died in 2006 at the age of 85, was a writer and a philosopher; he is one of the few Polish writers who have achieved true world-wide recognition. Rasa drapiezcow contains his last texts, mostly from his somewhat irregular column at the weekly Tygodnik Powszechny.

Stanislaw Lem

Hanna Krall, a writer and a journalist, is very well known for her books on fates of Polish Jews; she was also nominated to 2005 Nike for Wyjatkowo dluga linia (Exceptionally long line. In Krol Kier Krall applies her vintage terse and detached style to an extraordinary story about power of love carrying a woman through the Holocaust. Krall’s books are widely translated and available on the internet.

Hanna Krall

Mikołaj Łoziński is a young first-time author who has amazed the reading public. The vast majority of Polish novelists in the younger generation write about nothing but the here and now, focusing on the numerous problems of life in present-day Poland. However, the main character in Łoziński’s novel is a Swede who lives in the United States, and the story is set in Paris. So is this a forced attempt at originality, a common complaint among first-time writers? Not in the least – Łożiński offers his readers a universal theme, while the setting is basically of secondary significance. Reisefieber is the story of a personal family drama. More

Mikolaj Lozinski

Wieslaw Mysliwski, a writer and playwright, was the very first recipient of the prestigious Polish literary award, Nike in 1997 which he received for his book Widnokrag  (The Horizon).  After 10 years of silence as a writer, he has his new novel published. Traktat o luskaniu fasoli  is written as a monologue to a mysterious visitor in whom the narrator confides his life long experience and wisdom. The book has already earned raves from the Polish critics and readers.

About  Wieslaw Mysliwski

Wiesław Myśliwski

Baltazar. Autobiografia by Slawomir Mrozek, published by Noir sur Blanc in 2006. Mrozek, 76, is a playwright, novelist and a short story writer whose satires were exposing the absurd of totalitarian systems and examining attitudes of individuals. Baltazar is a frank autobiography of a twisted career that included his being regime journalist, cartoonist, free lance satirist, dissident, emigrant in France and Mexico and lately a classic back in Poland.

Slawomir Mrozek

This year marks the 10^th anniversary of death of Krzysztof Kieslowski, a famous Polish film director. To commemorate this event, the Polish Book Club of Seattle has chosen, as its July book, Kieslowski. Wazne, zeby isc by Stanislaw Zawislinski, published by Wyd. Skorpion in 2005.

 This book is billed as the first full biography of the famous director, that includes unknown facts, letters etc. Zawislinski wrote or edited other books on Kieslowski as well.

Uchodzcy by Henryk Grynberg, published by Wyd. Swiat Ksiazki in 2004.

 Grynberg, 70, is a distinguished novelist, poet, playwright, essayist and winner of many prestigious literary awards. Uchodzcy is a moving autobiography highlighting twisted lives of Polish Jews in Poland and USA in his terse style.

Henryk Grynberg

Polactwo by Rafal Ziemkiewicz, published by Wyd. Fabryka Snow in 2004.

 Ziemkiewicz is a freelance journalist and author of 4 books. Polactwo is a scorching and frequently funny criticism of attitudes and politics of contemporary Poles.

Rafal A. Ziemkiewicz

Dwukropek by Wislawa Szymborska, published by a5 in 2005.

 Szymborska is the famous poet and essayist who received the 1996 Nobel Prize in Literature. Dwukropek is her first book of poems in three years.

Wisława Szymborska

Wojna zensko-meska i przeciwko swiatu by Hanna Samson, published by Jacek Santorski & Co Ag. Wyd. in 2005.

Samson is a psychologist and a journalist working for Twoj Styl magazine, her first book came out in 1996.

Hanna Samson

Jadac do Babadag by Andrzej Stasiuk, published by Wyd. Czarne in 2004.

 This down to earth book by a non-conformist author won the prestigious 2005 Nike Award in Poland.

Andrzej Stasiuk

Miasto utrapienia by Jerzy Pilch, published by Wyd. Swiat Ksiazki in 2004.

 Pilch is a contemporary autor, whose Pod mocnym aniolem won the Nike in 2001 (no English translation yet).  Miasto utrapienia is a vintage Pilch, with an ESP plot line serving as scaffolding for his down to earth humor and ironic observations on life in Poland and the human nature. 

Jerzy Pilch

Paw Krolowej by Dorota Maslowska, published by Lampa i Iskra Boza in 2005.

It is the second book by the young prodigy author and it’s as controversial as the first one.

Dorota Masłowska

Wszystkie jezyki swiata by Zbigniew Mentzel, published by Wyd. Znak in 2005.

This multilayered novel set in Poland around 2000 but with reminiscences about growing up in the 1950s and the 1960s has all the critics raving about it.

Zbigniew Mentzel

Podroze z Herodotem by Ryszard Kapuscinski, wyd ZNAK, 2004, in part an autobiography, in part meditations on world civilizations invoked by Kapuscinski’s life-long fascination with The Histories by Herodotus. Kapuscinski’s most famous books are Emperor and Lapidarium.

Ryszard Kapuścinski

Z glowy by Janusz Glowacki, publ. Swiat Ksiazki, 2004.

 It’s an autobiography of the successful gadfly screenwriter, novelist and playwright. He has made his name in the US with his Broadway plays Hunting Cockroaches (1986) and especially with Antigone in New York (1992).

Janusz Glowacki

#7. December 18, 2004, 1 pm,  Seattle Central Public Library

Jasnie Panicz by Joanna Siedlecka, publ. Proszynski & S-ka, 2003, about the great writer Witold Gombrowicz, and Moj przyjaciel zdrajca by Maria Nurowska, publ. Santorski & Co, 2004, about Colonel Ryszard Kuklinski, the famous spy who reported the martial law plans against Solidarity to the CIA.

#6. October 9, 2004, 1 pm,  Northeast Branch, Seattle Public Libraries

Zlote Ogniwa. Polska-Europa by Norman Davies, about intertwining and interdependencies of Polish and European histories, and Nie wszystko na sprzedaz, by Beata Tyszkiewicz, a memoir of the famous Polish actress

#5. June 19, 2004, 1 pm, Seattle Central Library

Madame by Antoni Libera, published by Wyd. Znak in 1998.

Madame, Libera's debut novel, was a bestseller nominated for the Nike, the most important Polish literature award, and was awarded the prestigious Andrzej Kijowski award. The novel is a humorous, self-ironical portrait of the author’s coming of age in the reality of communist Poland at the close of the 1970s. The book has been translated into many languages including English

Antoni Libera

#4. May 21, 2004, 8 pm, Jerzy’s Coffee in Redmond

Co z ta Polska by Tomasz Lis, Wyd. Rosner i Wsp., 2003.

The book proved to be controversial and hotly debated and discusses the current political and economical situation of Poland.

Tomasz Lis

Both Pilch and Tokarczuk are contemporary writers. Upadek .. is a selection of the weekly writings for the Polityka magazine. Dom …  which was published in English (and is available at Amazon) as House of day, house of night is an extraordinary, poetic fiction book. Since its original publication it has remained a bestseller in Poland. Richly imagined, weaving in anecdote with recipes and gossip, Tokarczuk's novel is an epic of Nowa Ruda, a small town in Silesia.

#2. January 11, 2004, 11 am, Bellevue

Mercedes-Benz: z listów do Hrabala, Paweł Huelle, Wydawnictwo "Znak", 2001.

This charming novel tells a story related to the driving lessons that the narrator took in the 90. To impress a beautiful lady driving instructor and overcome his shyness, he became a great story teller. The main subjects of his stories were cars, starting with an antique Mercedes-Benz claimed by the Soviets in 1939.

Paweł Huelle

Magia i pieniądze,  Maria Kornatowska, Wydawnictwo "Znak", 2002

This is a book based on the interviews that Maria Kornatowska conducted with Agnieszka Holland. Holland talks about her films, explaining some of the Polish cinema characteristics. Very interesting lecture.

Agnieszka Holland