The London Book Fair 2016

Transcription

A
2016
The London Book Fair 2016
Rights Catalogue
Wydawnictwo
literackie
FRoNtlist
Contact Information
S U P E RV I S O RY B O A R D
Chairperson Vera Michalski-Hoffmann
Tomasz Wardyński
Mirosław Zaremba
Council Chairperson Anna Zaremba-Michalska
Editor-in-Chief Małgorzata Nycz
Head Editorial Secretary Maria Rola
Editorial Secretary Krystyna Zaleska
Finance Director Dariusz Kurdziel
Sales Director Grzegorz Głódkowski
PR & Marketing Director Marcin Baniak
Foreign Rights Manager
Joanna Dąbrowska
e-mail: [email protected]
Editor
Jolanta Korkuć
Editor
Paweł Ciemniewski
Address
Wydawnictwo Literackie Publishers Co. Ltd
ul. Długa 1, 31-147 Kraków
NIP: 676-21-16-135
REGON: 357052753
KRS: 0000012638
tel.: +48 (12) 619 27 40
fax: +48 (12) 422 54 23
2016
Rights Catalogue 2012
Wydawnictwo Literackie
www.wydawnictwoliterackie.pl
2
Contents
5
About Wydawnictwo Literackie
FICTION
Contemporary Fiction
10
13
14
15
18
20
21
22
23
25
28
31
36
37
38
39
41
43
45
47
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
59
60
61
Grzegorzewska Gaja – The Concrete Palace
Janko Anna – The Matchbox Girl
Janko Anna – The Passion According to Saint Hanka
Janko Anna – A Small Holocaust
Karpowicz Ignacy – Offbeat
Karpowicz Ignacy – The Miracle
Karpowicz Ignacy – Gestures
Karpowicz Ignacy – Balladynas and Romances
Karpowicz Ignacy – Fish Bones
Karpowicz Ignacy – Sonia
Lipko Tomasz – Notebook
Muszyński Andrzej – Damagedon
Pilch Jerzy – The Confessions of a Closet Scribbler of Erotic Fiction
Pilch Jerzy – A List of Adulteresses
Pilch Jerzy – Despair at the Loss of a Cart
Pilch Jerzy – A Thousand Peaceful Cities
Pilch Jerzy – The Irreversible Loss of Left-Handedness
Pilch Jerzy – The Fall of a Man in front of Warsaw Central Station
Pilch Jerzy – The Other Journal
Pilch Jerzy – Zuza, or: A Time of Growing Distant
Tokarczuk Olga – Prawiek and Other Times
Tokarczuk Olga – House of Day, House of Night
Tokarczuk Olga – The Doll and the Pearl
Tokarczuk Olga – Playing on Many Drums
Tokarczuk Olga – Runners
Tokarczuk Olga – Guide Your Plow Through the Bones of the Dead
Tokarczuk Olga – The Books of Jacob
Twardoch Szczepan – Eternal Grunwald
Twardoch Szczepan – Morphine
Twardoch Szczepan – Drach
Women’s Fiction
3
64
65
66
67
68
70
Grochola Katarzyna – The Flutter of Wings
Grochola Katarzyna – The Crystal Angel
Grochola Katarzyna – The Green Door
Grochola Katarzyna – Houston, We Have a Problem
Grochola Katarzyna – A Slightly Bigger Monday
Grochola Katarzyna – Lost Heaven
72
74
77
79
80
83
Gutowska-Adamczyk Małgorzata – Calendars
Kowalewska Hanna – Beyond the Shadow
Michalak Katarzyna – In the Name of Love
Michalak Katarzyna – Anything for You
Michalak Katarzyna – I Won’t Give Up the Children
Wiśniewski Janusz Leon – My True Stories
Children’s and Young Adult Fiction
85
89
90
91
92
Lang Adam – Keys
Terakowska Dorota – Cocoon
Terakowska Dorota – It
Terakowska Dorota – Where the Angels Fall
Terakowska Dorota – The Witch’s Daughter
Science Fiction & Fantasy
94
Piskorski Krzysztof – Shadowcarving
95 Piskorski Krzysztof – Volta
97 Piskorski Krzysztof – Chronicles of the Age of Ether
98 Piskorski Krzysztof – Splinter
NON-FICTION
Biography – Autobiography – Memoirs
101
103
105
108
107
111
112
114
116
119
Michalska Franceska – All the Joy of Living. In Volhynia, in Kazakhstan,
in Poland
Scenes with Mrożek: 39 Stories from Different Places and Times,
ed. by Magdalena Miecznicka
Pankiewicz Tadeusz – The Pharmacy in the Krakow Ghetto
Penderecki Krzysztof, Janowska Katarzyna, Mucharski Piotr –
The Penderecki Family. A Saga
Pilch Jerzy – There’s Always Never
Poświatowska Halina – Story for a Friend
Twardoch Szczepan – Whales and Moths. Memoirs
Wałęsa Danuta, ed. Piotr Adamowicz – Dreams and Secrets
Wilk Paulina – Distinguishing Marks
Włodek Ludwika – A Tale of the Iwaszkiewicz Family
History
4
121
Andrusiewicz Andrzej – The Romanovs
123 Chwalba Andrzej – Europe’s Suicide. World War I 1914–1918
125 Nowak Andrzej – The West’s First Betrayal
127 Sowa Andrzej Leon – A Political History of Poland 1944–1991
128
LIST OF AUTHORS AVAILABLE FOR TRANSLATION
About Wydawnictwo Literackie
For 63 years we have been inspiring, creating and publishing: exceptional
Authors, exceptional books.
In the very heart of Krakow, in the famed and distinctive Pod Globusem
Building on Długa Street 1, stands the headquarters of Wydawnictwo
Literackie Publishers – one of the largest and most highly respected literary
publishers in Poland.
Founded in 1953, Wydawnictwo Literackie Publishers has been inspiring
the most fascinating literary phenomena and publishing the finest names
in Polish and world literature for over half a century, including novelists,
poets, essayists, historians, and cultural scholars. We are, above all,
publishers of literature, particularly of Polish and foreign prose and
non‑fiction – including important memoirs, history books, popular science
titles, and literature for young people.
Among the authors affiliated with WL are Polish and foreign Nobel Prize
winners, as well as outstanding, admired, and award-winning figures
from the worlds of culture, literature, and art. We would not, however,
be considered one of the most influential on the market if we did not invite
the most interesting young and promising writers to work with us, as well
as the leading names in popular literature.
My love affair with Wydawnictwo Literackie Publishers began many years ago.
In 1957 they wanted to publish my novel, The Issa Valley, and in May they
received my manuscript. I admit that, because of my neglect, the signing of the
contract was postponed till August. Then the manuscript was readied for print.
Unfortunately, on 14 December the printing was halted “following discussions
at the Central Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party Publishing
Commission, owing to the general political activities of the author.” Nonetheless,
I recall with gratitude that the entire fee for the print run of 10,000 copies was
paid to my family. The publishing house returned to The Issa Valley after
I received the Nobel Prize, and its first Polish publication was in 1981. I clearly
had a great deal of sentiment for them, given that they issued my book of poetry
entitled A Hymn of Pearl in 1983, and in 1984, a two-volume edition of my
collected poems. I entrusted the publication of my collected works to two Krakow
publishers, Wydawnictwo Literackie and Znak. This clearly shows the esteem
I hold for the team at Wydawnictwo Literackie Publishers.
– Czesław Miłosz
5
Wydawnictwo Literackie Publishers is the only publishing house in Poland
capable of such enormous and prestigious undertakings as the collected
works of Stanisław Brzozowski, Witold Gombrowicz, Czesław Miłosz,
and Antoni Kępiński, a thirty-four volume publication of the works
of Stanisław Lem, the publication of the monumental collection of quotes
entitled Winged Words, edited by Henryk Markiewicz and Andrzej
Romanowski, the laborious preparation of a fifteen-volume scholarly edition
of the works of Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, and the publication of Sławomir
Mrożek’s diaries and correspondence.
We pride ourselves on a record number of awards and nominations gained
for our authors and for the publishing house itself – we publish books
by winners of the Nike Literary Award, the Kościelski Award, the Janusz
Zajdel Polish Fandom Award, the K. Wyka Award, the Polityka Passport,
the Literatura na Świecie Award, the Gdynia Literary Award, and many others.
Wydawnictwo Literackie Publishers is one of the first in Poland to have
begun selling books in the increasingly popular medium of electronic
publishing, in e-book and audio book formats. These new spaces for fine
literature are a great opportunity for authors and readers both – to our
mind, it is worth using the latest technologies to get books out to as many
diverse readers as possible!
My relationship with Wydawnictwo Literackie Publishers is affectionate,
bilateral, deep, extracurricular, fruitful, inspiring, interpersonal, long-term,
multifaceted, precise, subtle, valuable, and vivacious. Because I do not know
which term is the most important here, I have listed them all, in alphabetical
order. For the good of future authors, I hope that Wydawnictwo Literackie carries
on for another hundred years.
– Wisława Szymborska
Wydawnictwo Literackie Publishers means brilliant writers, the foremost
figures in culture, and inspiring personalities.
PERSONALITIES
Wisława Szymborska, Czesław Miłosz, Father Joachim Badeni,
Stanisław Barańczak, Władysław Bartoszewski, Zygmunt Bauman,
Jan Błoński, Andrzej Bobkowski, Zbigniew Brzeziński, Karl Dedecius,
Michał Głowiński, Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, Józefa Hennelowa,
Maria Janion, Stanisław Lem, Henryk Markiewicz, Sławomir Mrożek,
Maria Orwid, Wojciech Pszoniak, Tadeusz Różewicz, Tomasz Stańko,
Jerzy Stuhr, Dorota Sumińska, Jan Józef Szczepański, Hanna Świda-Ziemba,
Jan Twardowski, Karol Wojtyła, Adam Zamoyski, Antonina Żabińska
6
POLISH PROSE WRITERS
Janusz Anderman, Jacek Dukaj, Jerzy Franczak, Anna Janko,
Ignacy Karpowicz, Włodzimierz Kowalewski, Zbigniew Kruszyński,
Mikołaj Łoziński, Magdalena Miecznicka, Łukasz Orbitowski,
Kazimierz Orłoś, Jerzy Pilch, Marian Pilot, Jerzy Sosnowski, Olga Tokarczuk,
Szczepan Twardoch
ESSAYISTS, NON-FICTION WRITERS
Przemysław Czapliński, Tomasz Fiałkowski, Aleksander Fiut,
Tomasz Grzywaczewski, Jerzy Jarzębski, Michał Paweł Markowski,
Tadeusz Nyczek, Marian Stala, Jadwiga Staniszkis, Agata Tuszyńska,
Teresa Walas, Barbara Włodarczyk, Ewa Woydyłło
STARS OF POPULAR LITERATURE
Katarzyna Grochola, Marta Fox, Grzegorz Kasdepke, Katarzyna Krenz,
Roma Ligocka, Katarzyna Michalak, Jerzy Niemczuk, Katarzyna T. Nowak,
Agnieszka Pilaszewska, Dorota Terakowska, Janusz L. Wiśniewski
HISTORIANS
Andrzej Andrusiewicz, Henryk Batowski, Czesław Brzoza, Andrzej Chwalba,
Henryk Ćwięk, Niall Ferguson, Max Hastings, Ryszard Kaczmarek, Kazimierz
Krajewski, Jan M. Małecki, Mariusz Markiewicz, Grzegorz Motyka, Andrzej
Nowak, Andrzej Paczkowski, Artur Patek, Andrzej Pepłoński, Andrzej
Przewoźnik, Anna Reid, Jan Rydel, Douglas Smith, Andrzej Leon Sowa,
Stanisław Szczur, Ryszard Terlecki, Janusz Węc, Adam Zamoyski
POETS
Julia Hartwig, Zbigniew Herbert, Urszula Kozioł, Ewa Lipska,
Piotr Matywiecki, Jarosław Mikołajewski, Ewa E. Nowakowska,
Czesław Miłosz, Jolanta Stefko, Tadeusz Różewicz, Wisława Szymborska,
Halina Poświatowska, Piotr Szewc, Janusz Szuber, Jan Sztaudynger,
Adam Zagajewski
FOREIGN WRITERS
7
Margaret Atwood, John Banville, John D. Barrow, Jessie Barton, Walter
Benjamin, Hans Georg Berg, Thomas Bernhard, Jorge Luis Borges, Michael
Brooks, Andrea Camilleri, Emmanuel Carrere, Eleanor Catton, Julia Child, Lars
Saabye Christensen, Rachel Cusk, Kiran Desai, Annie Dillard, Robin Dunbar,
Joel Egloff, T.S. Eliot, Anne Enright, Hans Magnus Enzensbergera,
Oriana Fallaci, Niall Ferguson, Richard Flanagan, George Friedman, Max
Frisch, Anna Gavalda, William Golding, Yaa Gyasi, Sophie Hannah, Tim
Harford, Marlon James, Paul Kalanithi, Sue Monk Kidd, Karl Ove Knausgärd,
Hedi Kaddour, Eka Kurniawan, Maylis de Kerangal, Asa Larsson, Doris
Lessing, Primo Levi, Jonathan Littell, Maja Lunde, Armistead Maupin, Cormac
McCarthy, Lucy Maud Montgomery, Alice Munro, Amelie Nothomb, Chigozie
Obioma, Orhan Pamuk, Wiktor Pielewin, Sylvia Plath, Thomas Pynchon, Atiq
Rahimi, Tom Reiss, Philip Roth, Steve Sem‑Sandberg, Philippe Segur, Elif
Shafak, Morten Stroksnes, Ian Stewart, Isaac Bashevis Singer, Gonçalo M.
Tavares, Jurgen Thorvald, Venedict Yerofeyev, Mika Waltari, Virginia Woolf
FI C T I O N
Gaja Grzegorzewska
Gaja Grzegorzewska (b. 1980) – a writer known for her brave, modern, and
dark detective novels, the author of The Concrete Palace (2014), acclaimed by
critics and readers both, the first part of an urban detective trilogy. She is the
author of a series of detective novels with Julia Dobrowolska in the main role:
The Reaper (2006), The Night from Thursday to Sunday (2007), The Drowned Woman
(2010), and The Grave (2012), published with the EMG publishers. She finished
a degree in film studies at the Jagiellonian University. When she made her
debut in 2006, she was declared the youngest and most promising Polish
author of detective novels. Her following novels were praised with increasing
enthusiasm. In 2011 she received the prestigious High Caliber Award for
The Drowned Woman, declared the year’s best detective novel. The Grave brought
her many glowing reviews, in which her literary talent was much admired.
As a lover of detective novels, she also writes opinion pieces for The Detective
Site. She is trained in capoeira, a Brazilian martial art. She lives in Krakow.
Author photograph
© Anna Ciupryk
THE SERIES FEATURING JULIA DOBROWOLSKA
1. The Reaper (2006)
Private detective Julia Dobrowolska, a killer blonde with a scar, arrives at the
town of Bułkowice to hunt down the murderer of a girl found decapitated in
a corn field. This is the first important job of her professional career. But Julia is
the personification of cool and self-confidence, even if everyone around her is
sure that a woman is ill suited for the profession. Her investigation is hampered
by a ruthless and ambitious journalist who is making a television program
about the murderer, and a small-town policeman with a mysterious past. Julia
also has to deal with the silence and reluctance of the locals. She soon discovers
that this seemingly idyllic town hides several terrifying secrets. Nor does she
even suspect the proximity of the person the media calls the Reaper…
2. The Night from Thursday to Sunday (2007)
Private detective Julia Dobrowolska is hot on the trail of a ruthless killer in
an exclusive Krakow nightclub. Julia is beginning to work as a television
detective in a program run by investigative reporter Wiktor Bergen. However,
she is sick of being the gorgeous blonde whose job is to get television ratings
up. She decides to quit. And then her sister is entangled in a bold murder
committed in a small, labyrinthine Krakow club. Seeking to help her, Julia has to
keep working with Wiktor, and also with a policeman whose path she has once
crossed before.
8
FI C T I O N
3. The Drowned Woman (2010)
Julia Dobrowolska joins her friend and television partner Wiktor Bergen to the
port in Piaski, in the Mazurian Lake District. First she runs a course for future
detectives. Later she intends to rest in a luxury hotel. An unexpected encounter
with Julia’s ex-lover, police officer Aron Goldenthal, who intends to sail about
the lakes with a group of friends, causes a sudden change in the detective’s
plans. She decides to go sailing with them. She very quickly comes to regret her
decision…
4. The Grave (2012)
Corpses are disappearing from Rakowicki Cemetery in Krakow. Inspector Aaron
Goldenthal, an ex-boyfriend of Julia Dobrowolska, is on the case. At the same
time, businessman and mafioso Waldemar Linder comes to see Julia with
a peculiar job. It concerns the death of his daughter, who allegedly committed
suicide. To solve the mystery, Julia has to seek help from a dark figure from her
terrifying past…
We discover who Julia was before she became a detective, what she has hidden
so far, and where she got her disfiguring scar. Julia’s investigations cross
paths with those of her ex-boyfriend, leading her to some of Krakow’s darkest
secrets…
9
FI C T I O N
Gaja Grzegorzewska
The Concrete Palace
Betonowy pałac
Keynote
A dark detective novel by the Polish Chandler in a skirt, Gaja Grzegorzewska –
the hottest name in Polish crime fiction.
Selling points
•The youngest and most promising Polish author of detective novels.
•Winner of the prestigious High Caliber Award for best detective novel of the year.
•The Krakow criminal underworld as you’ve never seen it before.
•A book that caused a storm among critics and readers.
Date of publication: 2014
Description
Pages: 300
An intellectual with a pathological past and woman who would prefer to forget
what once happened.
The new “boss” of a housing estate and a serial killer who went one step too
far.
They are all tied up in an investigation that swiftly becomes a hunt, leading to
the grimmest parts of the city and the darkest corners of the human psyche.
Category:
(crime novel)
Rights available: World
English sample available
When the Professor returns from his hometown, he has no intention of
returning to the criminal underworld from which he broke free two years
previous. The city is also much calmer than it had been before his escape, when
the sadistic King ruled the housing estate. The atmosphere is not even spoiled
by the appearance of a thirteen-year-old prostitute who – impossible to say
when – moved into his apartment, and the increasing reports of the brutally
butchered victims of a serial murderer. However, with the disappearance of
Sophie, the wife of the Caretaker, the new housing estate administrator, the
Professor’s shady past swiftly flushes to the surface. As does the phantom of
his ex-lover, to whom he is linked by significantly more… Together they begin
a search that their lives will depend upon.
The Concrete Palace to is the boldest of all the novels written by this High Caliber
Award winner – a crime and detective novel and a psychological thriller rolled
into one.
“The language of Gaja Grzegorzewska’s The Concrete Palace is not the slightest bit
dry, and it has a gender. It is clearly masculine. Moreover, it has a style: grotesque,
fun, rakishly vulgar. This is already a lot – but we also have intricate suspense.”
Piotr Kofta, Wprost
10
FI C T I O N
“More raw than ever before – this is Gaja Grzegorzewska’s basic principle in her
latest crime story. This is no-holds-barred action for lovers of the genre… The
Concrete Palace is perhaps Poland’s answer to Pulp Fiction, a web of criminal
suspense and keen observations of the city of Krakow.”
Jacek Wakar, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna
“She treats her characters like an actor does his roles. Most recently she was a man.
With her latest novel, Gaja Grzegorzewska enters the detective novel canon.”
Elle
“A remarkably cinematic novel. As I was reading it I got the impression that I was
watching a tough masculine film that was provocative and, at times, terrifying.
I dream of getting a script like that.
This is a world we would rather not see, but which is so fascinating that it is hard to
resist. Real masculine prose, tough as nails, yet dazzling and intriguing. A dark book,
but with finesse.”
MAGDALENA CIELECKA, actress
“Grzegorzewska has her reasons for pushing the envelope – this is not a novel about
the struggle between good and evil, it is about shame. This makes its protagonists
vulnerable to pain and humiliation. The question is: Must we get rid of our shame?
This world Grzegorzewska has built is consistent and compelling.”
Justyna Sobolewska, Polityka
Target market
Lovers of detective novels, thrillers, tales of suspense.
11
FI C T I O N
Anna Janko
Anna Janko (b. 1957) – one of the best contemporary Polish women writers,
a poet and literary critic. She has written several volumes of poetry and
the novels The Match Girl and Passion According to Saint Hanka. Janko was
nominated for the “Nike Literary Prize” in 2001 and 2013 and the “Angelus
Central European Literature Award” in 2008; she has also won many awards
and literary prizes such as the “City of Gdańsk Book of the Year” in 1981
for her volume of poetry A Candle for the Devil, the “Dresden Independent
Writers’ Society Prize” in 1993 for her poetic oeuvre, a nomination for the
“Hermenegilda Kociubińska Silver Inkwell Literary Prize” in 2008, and
a nomination for the “Cogito Media Prize” for her novel The Match Girl in
2008. Her most recent book is A Small Holocaust.
Author photograph
© Agnieszka Herman
12
FI C T I O N
Anna Janko
The Matchbox Girl
Dziewczyna z zapałkami
Keynote
Literary, therapeutic, intimate, and thoroughly modern, The Matchbox Girl
is a striking novelistic debut by an established poet.
Selling points
• Winner of and nominee for several awards, including the Warsaw Literary Premiere,
the Cogito Media Award, the Angelus Literary Award, and the Władysław Reymont
Literary Award
• A “women’s novel” that does not talk down to its reader, and has much to say to men
and women both.
Description
Pages: 350
The debut novel by poet Anna Janko, who delights and enchants from the very
first page. The author’s language is beautiful and flowing, and does not shy
from experiments, hovering on the verge of prose realism and poetic mysticism.
Category:
Rights available: World,
excl. Germany
English synopsis available
The narrator is an extremely sensitive woman stuck in a marriage that has,
over time, turned into a kind of prison. While going about her everyday activities,
somewhere between hanging up the laundry and making lunch, she got lost. She lost
her own identity. Her husband, who was meant to be the only one for her, turned out
to be an insensitive go-getter, and her mother-in-law has despised her from the start.
Ultimately she escapes into alcohol, which makes the cruel world more pleasant and
approachable, and writing, which partially serves a therapeutic function, and helps
her to put her life in order.
This novel is a rousing success.
Dariusz Nowacki, Gazeta Wyborcza
Anna Janko has written a very subversive, very intelligent, and very female novel.
Its femininity is subtle, its subversiveness surprising, its intelligence simply dazzling.
What more could you ask?
Paweł Huelle
One feels a kinship here with Sylvia Plath – Janko’s language works on our senses
in a similar way.
K. Kofta
Target market
Readers interested in contemporary life, readers of psychological prose and fine
Polish prose as such.
13
FI C T I O N
Anna Janko
The Passion According to Saint Hanka
Pasja według św. Hanki
Keynote
The Passion According to Saint Hanka is a total examination of love – and what
makes it so necessarily incomprehensible
Selling points
• An acknowledged poet makes a graceful shift to novels, sacrificing none of the depth
and beauty that made her originally admired
Description
Pages: 368
Category:
excl. Germany
“Love walks among people and searches for lovers. It matters little who they are
and how their loves are entangled, how old they are, how much energy they
have, or how much money or time, what their views, plans, obligations,
and duties consist in,” Janko writes in her novel. She tells the story of Hanka –
the protagonist of her previous novel, several years down the road. Hanka,
who at first “took a husband as if he were freedom,” is disappointed with
the married life. She meets an old lover and an affair begins; there is betrayal,
guilt, and pain, but also delight, enchantment and disenchantment, heaven
and hell… It is all described with an extraordinarily insightful dynamic,
all in the context of the drama of love.
“What is most incredible in this story is a sense of hunger. Hunger for literature and
for the sensuous side of life”.
Przemysław Czapliński
Target market
Readers of contemporary prose that is ambitious and demanding, and readers
of lighter “women’s” literature.
14
FI C T I O N
Anna Janko
A Small Holocaust
Mała Zagłada
Keynote
This is a disturbing exploration of another person’s memories – the memories
of the author’s own mother. It is a singularly personal story which arose in
connection with historical world events.
Selling points
•The author has won many prizes and awards, among them the award of the New Books
monthly for the best book of 2015.
•This book has been very well received by readers and literary critics.
•It is a singularly personal story which arose in connection with historical world events.
Pages: 264
Category:
excl. Germany
Description
War never dies out…
This is the latest book by the highly-rated writer and poet Anna Janko. An
unsettling, very modern appraisal of the trauma suffered by the second
generation – fear has left its mark on their lives.
I have taken your story, your apocalypse, away from you, mother. You fed it to me
when I was little, a grain at a time, little by little, so it would not poison me all at
once. But the grains mounted up. Your story is in my blood…
Sochy village, near Zamość, south-eastern Poland, 1 June 1943. It only took
a few hours to annihilate the village. The buildings were burnt down; the
inhabitants shot to death. All that remained among the charred ruins was one
house, a few adults and several children.
Among them was nine-year-old Terenia Ferenc, Anna Janko’s mother. The little
girl saw the Germans murdering her family. This brutal image was to stay with
her throughout the years she spent in a children’s home, never allowing her to
forget…
It was as if I had two mothers because of it all. The first was an adult woman,
whom I missed when she went to the shops, whom I feared when she lost her temper,
who filled me with pride because no-one in our whole block had a prettier lady for
a mother. I also had another mother: a little girl, whose parents had died in the war,
who was still terrified and lonely, who had once known hunger and been forced to
work for a nasty aunt, the sort who beat her and made her carry pails of water up
the hill. For her going to the children’s home after the war was – what a paradox
– the best possible good fortune. This little-girl-mother would often lie down on the
divan in the middle of the day and cry for no reason.
excerpt from the book
15
Anna Janko’s A Small Holocaust is not just another tragic family story retrieved
from storage where it had been gathering dust since the Second World War.
The book gives us a powerful, entirely modern treatment of the trauma
FI C T I O N
experienced by the second generation, stigmatised by fear. The account of the
brutal, wartime destruction of the Polish village, told in a naturalistic style, is
a starting point for describing a state of ethical and existential vulnerability.
Janko’s prose is as sophisticated and challenging as ever and the subject
matter is more demanding than usual. It combines a contemporary story with
disturbing events from the past, and narration with reportage.
“It takes its place within a very important European trend of exploring the tragedy of
the Second World War in a spirit of understanding and openness to dialogue, rather
than of rivalry in relation to victims and war crimes.”
Robert Traba, Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper
“Janko has masterfully combined her mother’s memories, accounts from other
members of the family who could tell their own versions of the story, and references
to academic texts and essays with her own testimony about inheriting such
memories and facing the burden and restrictions they impose.”
Bernadetta Darska, Onet.pl internet portal
“An exceptional book. Exceptional not just because we believe the author when she
speaks of her ‘genetic trauma’ due to her powerful language which conveys her
sadness, anger and goading irony, which verges on cynicism (…). Emotional truth
emanates from this book.”
Juliusz Kurkiewicz, Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper
“This book argues strongly against the view that instances of war-related trauma can
be ranked in a hierarchy.”
Piotr Kofta, Wprost periodical
“As with Svetlana Alexievich’s reportage, in this book war is shown not only as
a tragic episode in history, but as a living memory, which even after many years puts
us on our guard as a danger which could recur.”
Aleksandra Żelazińska, Polityka periodical
Target market
Loyal readers of Anna Janko’s work, readers interested in current affairs, history,
psychology and sociology, readers who like essays, reportage and literary
non‑fiction.
16
FI C T I O N
Ignacy Karpowicz
Ignacy Karpowicz (b. 1976) is one of Poland’s most interesting
contemporary writers. He has written several novels (Lame, Miracle, Gestures,
Ballads and Romances, Fish Bones, Sonia), he won the Polityka Passport in 2010
for his novel Ballads and Romances, and was earlier nominated for the same
award for Lame (2006). He has received three nominations for the prestigious
NIKE Literary Award for Gestures (2009), Ballads and Romances (2011), and
Fish Bones (2014). He has been a columnist for Charaktery, Polityka, and
Dziennik Opinii magazines, and a reviewer for Gazeta Wyborcza.
OUTSTANDING AWARDS AND DISTINCTIONS
Nomination for the “Polityka” Passport for Niehalo
„Polityka” Passport for Balladynas and Romances
Nominated for the NIKE Award for Gestures
Nominated for the NIKE Award for Balladynas and Romances
Nominated for the NIKE Award for Fish Bones
Winner of Readers’ Choice NIKE 2014 Awards for Fish Bones
Shortlisted for the NIKE Award for Sonya
BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR IN THE WYDAWNICTWO LITERACKIE
PUBLISHERS CATALOGUE
Novels
Offbeat (first edition 2006, re-edition 2013)
The Miracle (first edition 2007, re-edition 2013)
Gestures (2008)
Balladynas and Romances (2010)
Fish Bones (2013)
Sonya (2014)
17
FI C T I O N
Ignacy Karpowicz
Offbeat
Niehalo
Keynote
A provocative novel about one day in the life of a frustrated young man which
suddenly takes on a whole new dimension…
Selling points
•Tree times nominated for the prestigious NIKE Literary Award
•Winner of the Polityka Passport in 2012
•One of the most highly-rated Polish writers of the younger generation
Description
Date of publication: first edition
2006, re-edition 2013
Pages: 232
Category:
Ignacy Karpowicz’s much-lauded novel about a day in the life of a Polish
literature MA student and beginning journalist for a provincial newspaper
who get drawn into some bizarre events.
The provincial Polish town of B. Ambling about it is one rebellious young
student of Polish literature, a beginning journalist for the local newspaper.
Maciek lives with his parents, his brother, his wheelchair-bound grandmother,
a dog, and fish. He cannot stand the woman supervising his MA thesis, his
family, his acquaintances, or his hometown, and he also has problems with his
girlfriend.
Hard to say what sets the avalanche of events in motion. It might be a meeting
with a friend from high school, the vast quantities of beer they drink together,
or his failed attempt to get closer to Agata. One way or another, halfway
through the day, a drunk and tired Maciek loses contact with reality. At one
point he crosses into another dimension…
Offbeat is utterly contemporary, dynamic, witty, ironic prose, using sarcasm
and the grotesque; it is astonishing and ingenious, proving the author’s
wild imagination. He fascinates us with the accumulation of the absurd,
and entertains us with the grotesque.
Rights optioned: Belarus
“Dazzlingly skillful.”
“This is a treasure for anyone who expects books to be thought-provoking and keenly
provocative. Highly recommended.”
Gabriel Wiktor Kamiński, Ksiazka.net.pl
“I believe in humor, self-deprecation, and laughter.”
Ignacy Karpowicz, in an interview for Polityka
Target market
Lovers of Ignacy Karpowicz’s work, readers of ambitious contemporary prose.
18
FI C T I O N
where the material things clearly dominate over the spiritual ones; they want
contact with a mystery. The most important thing in this book is a different
miracle altogether – one that is more ordinary and down-to-earth.
The key question here is, who is less alive: Mikołaj, or the people around him?
Karpowicz creates a whole gallery of characters, both major and minor, who
are dealing with failed, mediocre lives. Mikołaj’s parents, Anna, her ex-fiance
Artur, Mikołaj’s ex-girlfriend, the woman who ran him over – all their lives have
come to a standstill. They work, party, make love, eat, they do everything any
living person does, but in fact they are practically dead, because their lives lack
meaning. They live off of impetus without knowing why, they suffer, but do
nothing about it. They understand neither themselves nor others, even those
nearest to them. They only need an outside impulse, an accident, a sudden
coincidence, to finally see that they want to change something.
In Karpowicz’s novel the warm corpse is one such impulse; the series of events
initiated by the main protagonist makes the characters in the novel finally begin to
live their lives, or at least to hope that they will begin to live. And this is precisely the
miracle.
Robert Ostaszewski, Gazeta Wyborcza
Target market
19
FI C T I O N
Ignacy Karpowicz
The Miracle
Cud
Keynote
The second, dashing novel by Ignacy Karpowicz will disarm the reader with
its dazzling concept and linguistic virtuosity.
Ignacy Karpowicz: In The Miracle we are dealing with love, and love in our Western
cultural sphere is (or was) associated with the idea of God. God is love. And God –
the narrator of The Miracle – is a figure from a hyper-real and fantastical world.
Moreover, God is the wittiest non-person in the Universe. The clash of these structures:
high and low, divine and human, realistic and hyper-realistic, brings very interesting
results. And amusing ones, I hope.
Date of publication: first edition
2007, re-edition 2013
Pages: appr. 300
Selling points
•One of the top rated Polish writers of the younger generation
•Three times nominated for the prestigious NIKE Literary Award
Category:
Rights sold: Hungary (Typotex)
Description
The main protagonist is a twenty-something male named Mikołaj; he dies in
an accident on the first page of the novel and then… The body of the corpse
maintains a steady temperature, thirty-six or seven degrees (the doctor
comments: “for the first time in history we have a sick corpse on our hands” –
I quote this phrase to show the author’s peculiar sense of humor), and shows
no signs of decay. The action of the novel circulates around the body of Mikołaj,
which is transported from one place to another. The novel also includes the
notes of Mikołaj’s father, in which Karpowicz brilliantly adopts a biblical style
to depict the story of the protagonist and his childhood. These notes reveal that
the father was writing on the command of a divine messenger, revealing the
extraordinary nature of Mikołaj. Except that the divine messenger might just
also be a delusion of the father, who is seldom sober.
As a dead body, Mikołaj becomes a catalyst of events. These are as remarkable as
his condition – that of a warm corpse. A young doctor named Anna falls in love
with him, having the dim suspicion that she once met him somewhere before,
though she does not know where and how, and that contact with him, though
he is dead, will brighten up her dull, meaningless existence. The doctors try to
hold on to the body for as long as possible, hoping for a medical breakthrough
that will bring them fame. The family tries to retrieve his body. And ordinary
people, whom the tabloids inform about Mikołaj’s case, want to reach him,
hoping for some kind of miracle, healing, or merely comfort. Everyone seems
to want something from Mikołaj, everyone has his own stake in the corpse’s
miraculous properties.
Karpowicz’s novel is more than a grotesque, satirical tale about people counting
on divine intervention in spite of common sense, in spite of their lifestyles,
20
FI C T I O N
Ignacy Karpowicz
Gestures
Gesty
Keynote
Can you find out what life is really about after forty years old? This novel
says that you can always uncover all the mysteries. Everywhere.
Selling points
•One of the most clever and interesting contemporary Polish prose writers
•A compelling story whose emotional content should ring true for every reader
over forty
Description
Pages: 258
Category:
Rights sold:
Latvia (Mansards),
Lithuania (Vaga),
US/UK (Dalkey Archive Press)
Karpowicz’s Gestures is a story of solitude, silence and alienation. It is a tale
about discovering your home, about an attempt to understand and name
past events, and to put them in order.
The forty-year-old protagonist leaves his apartment in the big city and goes
back to where he grew up, to visit his mortally ill mother, whom he hasn’t
seen for some months. The protagonist’s departure turns out, however,
to be just the start of the journey…
A psychologically precise and moving vivisection of a “man in transition.”
In a word: powerful stuff.
*
Karpowicz’s prose has courage and humor, it contains ordinary reality and an
extraordinary imagination. And there is also something that leads us to believe
that the author of Miracle is here in our literature to stay, and that he has many
more pleasures to offer readers – a clear, original and well-measured style.
Robert Ostaszewski
Target market
Lovers of interesting prose that reveals the truth about the readers
themselves; moving, intelligent and bittersweet tales of fate,
and protagonists who often remind us a bit of ourselves.
21
FI C T I O N
Ignacy Karpowicz
Balladynas and Romances
Balladyny i romanse
Keynote
Take a pinch of Bulgakov, a touch of Rabelais and a healthy dose of Kundera,
and you are starting to approach Karpowicz’s world.
Selling points
•Nominated for the prestigious NIKE Award (2011)
•“Polityka” Passport Award
•A mixture of wildly imaginative flights of fancy and serious existential reflection
Description
Publication date: 2010
Pages: 576
Category:
Rights sold:
Hungary (Typotex),
Slovenia (Mladinska Knjiga
Zalozba),
Spain (Rayo Verde Editorial)
Things on Earth aren’t looking so good. The old, mighty Gods have pushed
out the trivial, yet ruthless little gods of pop culture. The world of the
global village provides no sense of stability and security. People are isolated
and have long lost their hope for a change of fate – they spend their lives
from one day to the next, apathetic and bored… And to make matters
worse, the coffee starts running out.
But one day the gods begin to act. A large group of them appears
among the people. Will Nike, Aphrodite, Jesus, Osiris, Lucifer and others
manage to bring back the proper hierarchy? Will humanity once again
believe? Ignacy Karpowicz’s latest novel is a brilliantly wrought, ironic
treatise on modernity. It is at once amusing and terrifying. Provocative
and blasphemous. Some will like it. Others won’t. And that’s the way
it should be.
Target market
Those interested in the outer limits of modern literary invention,
and in authors willing to compromise nothing to tell their story.
22
FI C T I O N
Ignacy Karpowicz
Fish Bones
Ości
Keynote
A modern literary danse macabre – wild and unpredictable, it leaves you
breathless!
Selling points
•One of the top rated Polish writers of the younger generation
•Winner of Readers’ Choice NIKE 2014 Awards
Description
Pages: 468
How to understand a person who has erased his Facebook profile? Can a wife
come to like her husband’s lover? And what links a married couple, a gay pair,
and an utterly hairless man? In spite of appearances, a great deal indeed…
Category:
Right sold:
Bulgaria (Gea Libris),
Hungary (Typotex),
Romania (Casa Cartii de Stiinta),
Slovenia (KUD Police Dubove)
Fish Bones a tale of the tangled nature of human relationships, full of games and
judgments. Sometimes semi-serious and sometimes dead serious. And it is very,
very good.
The beginning of this novel sounds innocent enough: „Beyond seven delusions
and as many dreams, beyond the forests of mysteries and silence, some
time ago somewhere in Warsaw…”. But nothing in this novel is innocent,
predictable, or evident.
„Karpowicz’s novel is a complex and enormously intelligent weave. It tells of two
families in which betrayal and extra-marital affairs lead less to destruction than to
the expansion of relationships. What is decisive here are feelings stronger than lust
and attitudes weaker than sincerity. It is precisely this suggestion – that a lasting
bond means not always calling a spade a spade, a necessary dose of hypocrisy, and
a discrepancy between behavior and opinions – makes Karpowicz’s Fish Bones one
of the most intriguing novels about families that has been written in recent years.”
Przemysław Czapliński
„However it might sound, this book is extraordinarily juicy. And so hot that it burns.”
Michał Nogaś
„If you are traveling by bus or train and see someone across from you reading Fish
Bones, you can be more than sure that he’ll be wearing a wonderful, sincere, and
beautiful smile! Just like the one I’ve got today! A home with Fish Bones is a happy
home!”
Maciej Stuhr
23
FI C T I O N
„Beneath its seemingly carefree approach to literature we can clearly see the various
layers of the book, its bones; Karpowicz proves not only his great awareness as
a writer, but also his high ranking among Poland’s best contemporary storytellers.”
Marek Styczyński, Kultura.onet.pl
„An aging literary critic, a depressed female biologist, a gay man with a proclivity for
pedantry and a few other people whose bases in reality are not so difficult to guess
meet in these pages in unexpected circumstances. This is a story full of the dazzling
irony known to readers of Ballads and Romances, as well as the psychological depth
of the earlier Gestures.”
Małgorzata I. Niemczyńska, Gazeta Wyborcza
Target market
24
FI C T I O N
Ignacy Karpowicz
Sonya
Sońka
Keynote
Sonya – beautiful and crippled, good and bad, a healer and cursed – tells a story
of desire and forbidden love, powerful and inconceivable, of feeling in spite of
and against the odds, feeling which cannot be saved.
Selling points
•Winner of the Polityka Passport 2012
•One of the most admired Polish writers of the younger generation
•Shortlisted for the NIKE Award
Pages: 208
Description
Category:
Rights optioned: Lithuania
Right sold: Belarus
(Literaturny Dom Lovhinau),
Bulgaria (Matcom),
France (Noir sur Blanc),
Germany (Berlin Verlag),
Macedonia (Begemot),
Romania (Lider),
Ukraine (Komora),
US/UK (Dalkey Archive Press)
A messenger, a Mal’ak, an angel of death has come to hear the tales of Sonya’s
life: a story of a bloody rag and of an old dog in a collar with Gothic letters, of
the greatest of wars, of hatred and humiliation. But above all, a story of desire
and forbidden love, powerful, inconceivable, transcending language and the
world. Of the love of a beautiful girl for an invader in a black uniform.
Sonya is a great yet intimate, simple yet difficult, subdued yet highly emotional,
pacifist yet brutal story filled with love. The author uses the convention of the
wartime romance to speak of “times past” and “now”; of “here” and “there”; of
the hell and paradise of memory.
Ignacy Karpowicz has another surprise in store for us, delighting us more than
ever, and proving that, following the successes of his previous books, he has
entered the literary super leagues to stay.
“Karpowicz’s brilliant idea is constantly confronting the protagonists with
foreignness and the inexpressibility of experience. As always in Karpowicz,
everything is in inverted commas, touched with irony and self-effacement, lined with
a fear of immediacy, sentimentality, or stating the obvious. As such, we trust Sonya,
and we also approach it with suspicion – which is just what Ignacy Karpowicz would
like us to do.”
Dariusz Nowacki, a review from the Book Institute web site
“As we know, Karpowicz creates perhaps the best female figures in contemporary
prose. And when Sonya speaks of love and death, Karpowicz delves into tones he
has never before tapped into. There appears a sort of lyricism that takes you by the
throat, without being kitsch.”
“Sonya’s malicious mastery is in its weave of melodramatic illusion and cynical
delusion. This novel is a trap.”
25
Przemysław Czapliński, Gazeta Wyborcza
FI C T I O N
“Sonya is a book that can fascinate. Karpowicz has, after all, a remarkable gift – the
gift of being able to tell intriguing stories that crackle with sharp observations.”
Andrzej Horubała, Do rzeczy
Target market
Lovers of the work of Ignacy Karpowicz, readers of ambitious contemporary
prose.
26
FI C T I O N
Tomasz Lipko
Tomasz Lipko is a reporter, a photojournalist, and a film producer. He is
a lawyer by education, though he has not worked in this profession for
a single minute of his life. He has been a reporter for the Polish parliament
and a war correspondent, and he has written reportage for Polityka and
Gazeta Wyborcza. He loves to cook, is a friend to animals, and has been
awarded with this title by the Viva! Foundation International Movement for
Animals. Notebook is his debut as a writer.
27
FI C T I O N
Tomasz Lipko
Notebook
Notebook
Keynote
A prosecutor from the countryside, a trader in human organs, and the dark
side of the Internet, in the first interactive novel, which will totally alter the
meaning of the word “read”!
Selling points
•The year’s hottest debut – a novel by a famous journalist that caused a storm among
readers!
•A next-generation suspense novel – the first interactive thriller, in which some scenes
are seen through the eyes of the protagonists…
Description
Pages: 448
Category:
Contemporary fiction
The year is 2012. All of Poland is in euphoria, waiting for the inauguration of
an important sports event. In the shadows of the preparations for the Euro
Finals a game is underway that could shake the foundations of the whole
country…
A young woman named Dagmara Frost dies in a road accident near Piotrków
Mazowiecki. Prosecutor Radosław Bolesta, jaded and knocking on forty, is
called to the scene. At first he sees nothing suspicious. When he goes to
inform the victim’s family about the tragedy, however, it turns out that
woman had no friends or relatives. It is as if someone had consciously wiped
out all trace of her…. The prosecutor hopes that the laptop found near the
body will help him to find the girl’s loved ones. He does not know it yet, but
turning on the computer will change his whole life.
Notebook is a modern and compelling thriller that holds you in suspense;
it tackles some important contemporary topics, such as the freedom of
the press, judicial independence, holes in personal data protection, and
the dark side of the Internet. It is also a revolutionary book in terms of the
technology it uses. The author of the novel has composed over a dozen
film clips into the story and the fictional world; readers can watch them on
their tablet or mobile phone at any point in the reading. For the first time in
the history of the suspense novel – in Poland and world wide – the reader
can go deeper into the action and see the world through the eyes of the
protagonist.
“A great summertime read. Pity I’ve already read it.”
Marcin Meller
“Notebook transports us into a world full of blood, whispers, and screams. It
transported me, too.”
Piotr Najsztub
28
FI C T I O N
Target market
Readers of suspense novels and thrillers. Those interested in contemporary
life, technology, and politics.
29
FI C T I O N
Andrzej Muszyński
Andrzej Muszyński (b. 1984) is a law graduate. He has had two books
published by the publishing house Czarne: a collection of short stories,
Boundary Balk, nominated for the Gdynia Prize, and a collection of reportage
under the title South. He was also the first recipient of the Ryszard
Kapuściński Herodot Foundation grant, and the winner of the competition
for best short story at the International Festival of the Short Story in
Wrocław. He has been published in the press and in literary journals. He is
also an explorer and has won national prizes for his crossing of the Minkébé
Desert in Gabon and for his expedition to the Myanmar Himalaya. He has
also made a solo foot crossing of the Atacama Desert.
He is awaiting the publication of two travel books by Czarne.
30
FI C T I O N
Andrzej Muszyński
Damagedon
Podkrzywdzie
Keynote
Written in a remarkably colorful and visual language, this novel is a tale of
childhood and growing up in the Polish countryside.
Selling points
•The author is considered one of the most interesting literary voices of the thirtysomething generation.
•The novel made it to the final round of the POLITYKA Passport competition.
•The first novel by an author of very highly rated books of journalism.
•Ties in to the prose of Bruno Schulz in a fascinating way.
Pages: 192
Category:
Contemporary fiction
Rights sold:
Macedonia (Ars Lamina)
Description
The world to which Muszyński’s prose obsessively returns is on the verge of
reality and myth, of truth and fiction. His protagonists live in a small village
on the edge of a desert, cut off from the world. And although there is only
one desert in Poland, it is far from clear if we are dealing with the
Błędowska. Perhaps this is a biblical desert – a boundless space where
marvelous tales can be born?
Podkrzywdzie is a story that shows the evolution of the imagination.
A young boy encounters the world through the grandfather he lives with.
This remarkable character – a sorcerer, a wise man, but also a drunk
tormented by countless demons – is a key figure in the young protagonist’s
childhood. The grandfather has his mysteries and peculiarities, which are
not always comprehensible to the young boy, nor to the now-mature writer.
The Podkrzywdzie of the title is his sanctuary which none may enter –
a mystical place to which he flees when struck by unbearable melancholy.
But did Podkrzywdzie ever really exist?
Muszyński’s novel is not another mediocre and sentimental hearkening to
the magical time of childhood. On the contrary – it is a fascinating tale of
how our memory works and how difficult it is to describe what is constantly
slipping into the sphere of mythology. Muszyński also attempts to reinvent
a language for speaking of the Polish countryside – he draws from the
tradition of Bruno Schulz and Olga Tokarczuk in a truly original fashion,
yet he delves much further.
Muszyński has entirely immersed his tale in myth. He has used mythology to fire
his novel into outer space! The village he conjures up at the edge of the Desert
has no electricity […]. Muszyński’s constructs and forms allude, obviously, to
solutions found in Schulz’s prose (series of repeating phenomena and processes),
and even more to Olga Tokarczuk’s “Primeval and Other Times” […]
31
FI C T I O N
We feel a clear yearning for meaning and structure, and above all, for something
tangible and firm to bring us certainty that our presence in the world is more than
just an illusion.
Muszyński has created less an image of a village suspended in timelessness than
a full world, Schulzian in spirit. There is the law-giver Stójkowy, owner of the library,
the grandfather, grandmother, and the grandson, the narrator, who tries to delve
into he mystery. Muszyński’s book is brilliant attempt to redescribe what is visible,
and at the same time, it is a small treatise on existence.
ANDRZEJ MUSZYŃSKI: I was brought up in a village, I still live there. I have drawn
experience from that, which does not mean that I know no other. But those came
first, and were powerful. I am never calculating when I write – I am not concerned
if someone has dealt with a subject before me. Except that all I described so far was
myth, while wondering how to approach it – from the side, from behind? Juggling
this dilemma is, on the one hand, quite difficult, and on the other, is a lot of fun.
A fragment from the conversation “Beyond Irony and Nostalgia” – a conversation
with Andrzej Muszyński and Maciej Płaza. Interviewers: Katarzyna Trzeciak and Michał Sowiński,
dwutygodnik.com http://www.dwutygodnik.com/artykul/6338-poza-ironie-i-nostalgie.html
The author about his novel:
32
The events described in Podkrzywdzie occur throughout the course of a year –
from late summer to the following fall. That was also how I wrote it – in time
with the changing seasons. I looked through the window, entered the forest,
and carefully observed how the world was changing. I sometimes joke that this
is a book about climate change. In fact it enters into a dialogue with nature,
with everything that surrounds us, in an increasingly urbanized world. I tried
to describe this great conflict of the contemporary world, an apparent conflict
which is in fact created by people – Intuition and Rationality, spirituality
and science, which to my mind sever human ties. In writing Podkrzywdzie
I understood that only the literary code can capture the essence of things.
I needed symbols and myths to do the job. In this case the core of the matter
is the collapse of the community, of a certain culture. The factor that drives
or causes this is Stójkowy, the head of the village and the judge, a rationalist
conscious of the limitations of his stance and his mind. He has come from afar,
and despite his intentions he hastens the village’s degeneration, the collapse
of its rituals. He represents a world view entirely foreign to the place and
introduces a new law. I am a lawyer by education. I was inspired to create this
figure through a fascination for Arab philosophy and that of the law of Islamic
cultural circles, which a European can find sober and revealing. The novel’s
main protagonist, an old man who represents the intuitive approach of peasant
culture, tries to free himself from the burden of the past, from his wife’s loss of
a child, whose fetus – according to local tradition – he buried at the threshold
to the home.
narrator believes that with his rich vocabulary he will manage to resurrect
the child’s experience of reality, to salvage the Mystery, or rather, a sense of
it. Perhaps this is merely an attempt to take language to its limits, beyond
which it is no longer necessary to affirm the world with a calm spirit. This is
FI C T I O N
a tale of a desire for authenticity, a yearning for a personal experience, for the
extraordinary, for mystery, for a world that feels close at hand. I wrote this book
in darkness and silence.
33
FI C T I O N
Jerzy Pilch
Author photograph © Danuta Węgiel
34
Jerzy Pilch (b. 1952) – novelist, columnist, playwright, film scriptwriter.
A writer known for his ironic approach to the world, his inventive allusions
and his scathing pen. His books have been translated into more than a dozen
languages. Many of his novels such as The Mighty Angel, A List of Adulteresses,
The Fall of a Man in front of Warsaw Central Station, The Irreversible Loss of
Left‑Handedness and A Thousand Peaceful Cities have attained cult status.
His books have inspired many film adaptations and theatrical productions.
He has won many prestigious prizes, such as the “Kościelski Foundation
Award”, Polityka magazine’s ”Passport Award” and the “Nike Literary Prize”.
FI C T I O N
Jerzy Pilch
Wydawnictwo Literackie represents translation rights to the following titles
by Jerzy Pilch:
35
FI C T I O N
Jerzy Pilch
The Confessions of a Closet Scribbler
of Erotic Fiction
Wyznania twórcy pokątnej literatury erotycznej
Keynote
This is the forceful and mature debut of one of the most eagerly read
contemporary Polish writers. These selected stories by Jerzy Pilch won the
“Kościelski Foundation Award”.
Selling points
•One of the best contemporary Polish writers.
•He has won many prestigious prizes and awards.
•All his books are bestsellers.
Pages: 216
•Two of his books, A Thousand Peaceful Cities and My First Suicide, have appeared on the
Kirkus Reviews list of the hundred best books in the USA.
Category:
•This book won the “Kościelski Foundation Award” in 1989.
Description
Dreary everyday life versus the master of scathing repartee, irony and dazzling
insights. This first book by Jerzy Pilch achieved the recognition it deserved by
winning the “Kościelski Foundation Award” in 1989.
It is hard to believe this is the author’s first book! In this first collection of
stories Jerzy Pilch already displays all the attributes which enthral readers in his
later books: a masterly sensitivity to language, a sense of humour which can be
bitter and his characteristic turn of phrase. On the surface Pilch appears to be
narrating light-hearted stories, but actually he explores affairs of the heart, the
transitory nature of existence and the role of literature in great depth.
“I’ve tried everything! I’ve scribbled on reams of paper; I’ve imbibed coffee, cognac
and wine. Hundreds of times I’ve moved my desk against the wall and back again
to the window. I’ve risen at the crack of dawn and pored over my work late into the
night. I’ve smoked cigarettes. I’ve changed my clothes incessantly as I imagined my
external appearance would influence my narrative style.”
Excerpt from the book
Target market
Fans of Jerzy Pilch’s work, readers who like sophisticated contemporary prose.
36
FI C T I O N
Jerzy Pilch
A List of Adulteresses
Spis cudzołożnic
Keynote
This novel features the city of Kraków, alcohol and women – it confirmed Pilch’s
position as one of the most outstanding Polish writers.
Selling points
Pages: 216
Category:
Cotemporary Fiction
Description
This is one of Jerzy Pilch’s most popular books: it features a vice-ridden Kraków
doused with Albanian cognac and enveloped in clouds of cigarette smoke.
Sex-crazed Gustaw, an academic working in the humanities and a would-be
writer, shows a visitor from Sweden around Kraków and introduces him not
only to the beauty of its art and architecture, but also to the charms of Polish
women. Intending to enhance his guest’s evening entertainment, he pulls
out a notebook where he has recorded the names and phone numbers of his
previous, current and would-be lovers. Meeting them once again forces him to
relive his past.
This is a story which abounds in accurate observations about Kraków, passion,
literature and alcohol and encourages the reader to rethink the boundaries
between love, sinfulness and adultery; it is written in Pilch’s inimitable style
of a person carefully observing his environment from the perspective of an
outsider, “a protestant in the heart of Roman Catholic Poland”.
The film adaptation of A List of Adulteresses with Jerzy Stuhr directing and
starring in the main role was a runaway success.
“A real world is created by his words as with Schulz; a spirit of parody runs wild as in
Gombrowicz’s work; and he must have inherited his wicked wit from Mrożek.”
Jan Błoński
“As you read so your sense of bewilderment gradually grows – just as if you were
chasing the words down with sips of Albanian cognac alongside the characters in the
book. Pilch’s writing and the topsy-turvy ideas fluently conveyed in his book never
cease to astonish.”
Granice.pl literary vortal
Target market
Cinema-goers who loved the film adaptation of A List of Adulteresses.
37
FI C T I O N
Jerzy Pilch
Despair at the Loss of a Cart
Rozpacz z powodu utraty furmanki
Keynote
Everyday life, the literature and the politics of the stormy period after the fall
of the communist regime in Poland, seen through the sharp eyes of one of the
country’s most outstanding writers.
Selling points
Pages: 280
Description
Category:
A real treat for fans of Jerzy Pilch’s cutting tongue and acute observational
abilities. This is a collection of Jerzy Pilch’s best articles from the stormy period
of the early years of the Third Polish Republic.
The book contains selected material written by Pilch between 1990 and 1994,
as well as five texts from the 1980s and a brilliant introduction by Stanisław
Barańczak.
At a time when the country was revelling in its newly regained freedom,
Pilch mercilessly itemises the Poles’ failings; he refers to Poles as “Europeans
restricted by their pre-Slav underpants” who must learn “how to walk” from
scratch. Looking out from his partitioned workspace at what he sarcastically
terms ‘a land of giants’, he lays bare the mediocrity of the new elites, which,
having achieved political victory, were floundering in the face of reality.
Pilch also takes a close look at his fellow writers: at the circle gathered around
the literary magazine Brulion, at reactions to the Salman Rushdie affair and at
Jerzy Kosiński. In this area also his grim outlook persists, which is not really
surprising as he believes that in the end all literature is a failure.
“A man feels weak, and how can it be otherwise when there is so much weakness all
around. Weak bodies, weak air and weak money. A weak Poland and a weak world.
Weak management. Weak hopes weakly defined. Weak citizens, weak books, a weak
health service and weak police. Weak culture and weak support from sponsors. Even
if we manage after many years to build an efficient capitalist system, it will still
be weaker than those which developed earlier because by our very nature we are
weaker.”
Excerpt from the book
Target market
38
Readers interested in the history of Poland in the early 1990s.
FI C T I O N
Jerzy Pilch
A Thousand Peaceful Cities
Tysiąc spokojnych miast
Keynote
A Thousand Peaceful Cities was acclaimed in the USA as one of the best novels of
2010 by the prestigious trade magazine Kirkus Reviews. “If laughter actually is
the best medicine, fortunate readers of this wonderful novel will surely enjoy
perfect health for the rest of their days,” said the Kirkus starred review.
Selling points
Pages: 196
Category:
Description
Readers who enjoyed Pilch’s earlier work will find everything they love best in
A Thousand Peaceful Cities: his particular sense of humour, sometimes subtle and
sometimes blunt, his brilliant use of language and his unique turn of phrase.
In 1963, when Józef Trąba was told he could expect to meet an early death
on account of his alcoholism, he decides to do something worthwhile for
Poland before he dies – and what could be of greater service to his oppressed
fatherland than assassinating “the tyrant”, the First Secretary of the Central
Committee of the Polish United Workers’ Party, Władysław Gomułka? The
narrator of the story is Jerzyk, a young boy who is just entering the most
difficult phase of adolescent anguish, and his father, the Chief, becomes Trąba’s
accomplice.
The dreary, at times absurd, reality of life under Gomułka is colourfully
described in the novel through the prism of the narrator’s vibrant, youthful
imagination with well-aimed, scathing comments thrown in by hedonistic
Trąba and the stoically inclined Chief.
“Pilch’s writing, all of it, just jumps off of the page,” says Van Lanen. “It’s witty, it’s
touching; his sentences have so much life, there’s a real joy in his writing…who
doesn’t love a story about a drunken plot to assassinate a communist despot with
a bow and arrow?”
Edward Van Lanen, Kirkus Review
“On first discovering a text by Pilch, a reader who hasn’t been warned may
be in danger of becoming so engrossed they temporarily lose touch with their
surroundings. It is a strange phenomenon as there is no meaty plot or dramatic
action worthy of the cinema and so the reader is not held in suspense by curiosity
aroused by the repeated question “what happens next?”. Quite the opposite. The
39
FI C T I O N
article Fog in the village of Łopuszna, ‘I’m getting to bloody like you – you
Lutheran or Calvinist – more and more.’”
Mariusz Cieślik, Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper
Target market
40
FI C T I O N
Jerzy Pilch
The Irreversible Loss
of Left-Handedness
Bezpowrotnie utracona leworęczność
Keynote
Fascinating jottings about both trivial and crucial matters from the master of
ridicule and razor-sharp commentary.
Selling points
Pages: 248
Category:
Rights avalable: World
Description
Here we have Jerzy Pilch, the famous writer, the brilliant mocker and master
of irony whose acerbic pen has scathed many, juxtaposing the banality and
absurdity of everyday life with tradition and history.
On the one hand there is the mundane, the common, clichés and minor
observations about a frequently absurd reality. The observations are personal
and autobiographical. On the other hand there is tradition and history. At the
centre of it all is Jerzy Pilch, who as usual brilliantly plays with different styles,
combines humour and solemnity, improvises, tells stories, generalises, focuses
on the specific, and ridicules things, but also presents serious interpretations.
In this book Pilch records the diversity of contemporary Poland’s society and
mores and combines his observations with partly nostalgic, partly ironic
recollections from his childhood and youth. The originality of the observations,
the humour and sarcasm, the witty paradoxes and the parody are the
distinguishing characteristics of Pilch’s prose. In the book Pilch shares his
opinions about books he has read, refers to successful and not so successful film
productions and engages in debate with his fellow writers. The book is also, of
course, not short of references to football. Satire, irony and sarcasm take pride
of place, but the author has also found room for deep reflection, although it is
often hidden under a mask of mockery.
“I intended The Irreversible Loss of Left-Handedness to be a type of diary,
a memoir, prose with a strong autobiographical slant. But it was also supposed to
have the distinctive immediacy of a regular column, to be a record of current events
worth noting, a series of mordant portrayals of my fellow citizens inspired, for
example, by entirely chance meetings on Kraków’s main square. That last situation
indeed gives rise to an opportunity for playing with reality in a striking way.”
Jerzy Pilch
“The Irreversible Loss of Left-Handedness reveals the duality of Jerzy Pilch as
a writer: he is both a feature writer grasping daily life and a discerning literary expert.
41
Mariusz Czubaj, Polityka magazine
FI C T I O N
“Which hand did Pilch use to write The Irreversible Loss of Left-Handedness?
I suspect the right, as it embodies all the techniques of writing, the characteristic
fluency of his style, the flashes of humour, etc., in other words all the characteristics
which make the book so attractive to the reader.”
Jerzy Jarzębski, eminent literary critic and literary historian
Target market
Fans of Jerzy Pilch’s work, readers who like sophisticated contemporary prose,
biographies and memoirs.
42
FI C T I O N
Jerzy Pilch
The Fall of a Man in front of Warsaw
Central Station
Upadek człowieka pod Dworcem Centralnym
Keynote
Jerzy Pilch takes Warsaw by storm – this is a collection of first-rate articles
written by one of the most important Polish writers of the turn of the century.
Selling points
Pages: 276
Category:
Description
Warsaw seen through the eyes of the master of mockery and witty observation.
This is a collection of Jerzy Pilch’s best articles – a writer adored by millions of
readers.
This is a selection of texts written by Jerzy Pilch between 1999 and 2002 after
his move to Warsaw: the inspiration for them came largely from his new
environment. Although he is amazed by the ordinariness and not infrequently
by the ugliness of some spots in the capital, such as the Palace of Culture,
Warsaw City Station or Warsaw Central Station, referred to in the title of the
book, the author still manages not to lose the scathing wit and critical view of
the world around him which his readers love.
The Fall of a Man in front of Warsaw Central Station is compiled from texts which
are quite personal and yet, as is the norm with Pilch’s work, the personal
content does not preclude a literary form; indeed, although the subjects are
everyday life, football, the office move of Polityka magazine’s editorial team and
day-to-day life on Warsaw’s streets, we are undoubtedly looking at top-class
literature.
“And so due to Polityka magazine I became deeply involved in the realities of
Warsaw life, or in the realities of life in general; I like working in this city, and
I believe this is evident generally and specifically in my strictly Warsaw-focused
features, to which I attach particular special significance and which I will arrange
into a book as a separate series of articles. I suspect I will give the whole thing the
title, The Fall of a Man in front of Warsaw Central Station.”
Jerzy Pilch, Polityka magazine, 23 March 2002
“I have to agree with the Warsaw City Station vendor, ‘The bloke certainly knows how
to write.’ I could also back my opinion up with the one expressed by the philosopher
Fr. Tischner (a mutual acquaintance of the vendor and Jerzy Pilch) taken from Pilch’s
43
FI C T I O N
story told in the book is clearly a delusion and it is obvious right from the start it will
all come to nothing, it will blow over.”
Anna Nasiłowska, Tygodnik Powszechny newspaper
Target market
Those who love farcical comedy with communist Poland as its backdrop.
44
FI C T I O N
Jerzy Pilch
The Other Journal
Drugi dziennik
Keynote
A year of the life of the famous writer, reader and bitingly witty observer of
the world.
Selling points
•Holder of many prestigious awards and honorary mentions.
•His every single book becomes a bestseller.
Description
Pages: 282
Category: Biography –
Autobiography – Memoirs
Jerzy Pilch, a famous writer, witty mocker, ironist, whose biting tongue has
been experienced by many, is faced with the inevitable. An inexorable diagnosis
casts a shadow over his life.
When in June 2012 Jerzy Pilch begins writing the second volume of his
journal, Poles pour out into stadiums and in unbearable heat go through ritual
failures of the national football team. In the meantime the writer, an excellent
philosopher of Polish football, strikes a more personal note: he marches away
from the screens on the Parade Square and in his apartment on Hoża Street he
confronts the final things. Women up and leave, demons approach from each
angle. His visits to Wisła become less frequent – but in his thoughts he is there
almost at all times.
A popular writer shares with his readers reflections about the reality that
surrounds him, about life and literature. He writes openly about his yearning
for health and chances for eternal life. About Isaak, Babel, Emil Cioran, Fyodor
Dostoyevsky. When time speeds up, you need to leave behind everything trivial
and focus on what is truly important.
A combination of irony and sarcasm with a painful feeling of an approaching
loss of senses makes The Other Journal a truly bitter and fascinating read.
Honest and detached, these notes can be amusing, sometimes surprising
and sometimes touching.
„A reviewer compared Pilch to Sandor Marai. A noble comparison it may be, but there
is nothing like Pilch.”
Jan Bończa-Szabłowski, Rzeczpospolita
„You cannot have enough of Pilch. Unlike other substances, you cannot overdose
on Pilch.”
Krzysztof Varga, Gazeta Wyborcza
„An auto-ironic confession of what interests and angers Pilch. Everyday notes
that are not about every day. Existential deliberations, memoirs, literary critique,
football and a witty commentary to everyday life.”
45
Elle
FI C T I O N
„The Other Journal is a fascinating read.”
Dziennik Gazeta Prawna
„The intensity of Pilch’s text is so great that when the words ‘the end’ appear,
we do not believe it, and we want more just out of spite, against the illness.”
Target market
Admirers of Jerzy Pilch’s works, readers of good quality contemporary prose,
biographies and journals.
46
FI C T I O N
Jerzy Pilch
Zuza, or: A Time of Growing Distant
Zuza albo czas oddalenia
Keynote
Pilch is back on his favorite turf – humor, ironic wisdom, and eroticism in
a novel about love and growing old, written in his inimitable style.
Selling points
•One of Poland’s best and most influential contemporary writers.
•Winner of many prestigious awards and distinctions.
•Every one of Pilch’s novels has a wide resonance and is a front runner for the most
important literary awards.
•Legions of devoted fans ensure Pilch’s novels a high position on the bestseller lists.
Pages: 136
Category:
Contemporary Literature
Rights sold: Russia
(Inostrannaya Literatura)
Description
Old age and the erotic, sanctity and sin – as well as the famous Pilch irony – in
the latest novel by one of Poland’s most famous contemporary writers.
An aging writer speaks of the women of his life, and above all, of the last one
– the Zuza of the title, a prostitute forty years younger than him, who is the
object of his insane adoration.
As ever in Pilch’s work, autobiography melds with fiction in proportions
impossible to unravel, while the intimate, first-person narrative allows for the
liberal interjection of digressions, jokes, and biblical reflections. Under the guise
of a sense of humor, in the style that has won him millions of admirers and
many awards, the writer concocts a tale of the passing of time, of women, and
above all, of love – albeit sometimes hobbling, awkward, and open to mockery.
Zuza or: A Time of Growing Distant is another book that shows the mastery of
Jerzy Pilch in combining irony and seriousness, as well as an original and bold
look at the author’s world. You won’t be able to put it down!
In his latest novel, Zuza, or: A Time of Drifting Away, Jerzy Pilch brilliantly strikes
a balance between truth and fiction in every paragraph. A remarkable synthesis: it is
ostentatious invention, and yet the most autobiographical work in his oeuvre.
This is Jerzy Pilch as you have never seen him before, even if you have carefully read
Other Delights and his other books on his erotic fascinations, states of enamorment,
and love. More than ever before, this protagonist of Pilch’s is defenseless, yearning,
open, and painfully lonely. This remains true when he veils his thoughts with irony.
In this story about a mature, ailing man’s dreams of pairing up with a young and
vivacious woman, the longing to begin life all over is crucial. The fact that she is
a prostitute is less important to the narrator than the heat “which suggests that
everything might change any minute now.”
47
Marta Strzelecka, Pani
FI C T I O N
Zuza, or: A Time of Drifting Away maintains the classic, core, Pilchian prose, with
all its trademark features and the familiar rhythm of the sentences.
Kazimiera Szczuka
This is a little book about big issues, concerning a time which we seldom consider in
life. It is about emotional intensity in the face of nothingness. And the difficult road
in reconciling the two.
Jarosław Czechowicz, Krytycznym Okiem blog
Readers of this scandalous and provocative autobiographical story of the love
between an old man and a prostitute become, by the book’s end, readers of a parable,
veiled and enveloped by this short, but dense and polymorphous novel. At the end
we perceive that the writer has played us wisely, when we see that parallel to his
masterful use of language, gestures and expressions, this sad and bizarre prose has
transformed into a Lutheran morality tale, a secular sermon.
Ryszard Koziołek, Tygodnik Powszechny
Love idealizes its subject. I do not describe what I am calling love in too much detail,
it suffices that I focus on the delight. There is no love without delight – but delight
can exist without love.
Jerzy Pilch
Target market
Lovers of Pilch’s prose. Readers of contemporary dramatic and romantic
literature. Readers who follow the nominees for the most important literary
awards.
48
FI C T I O N
Olga Tokarczuk
ONE OF POLAND’S MOST OUTSTANDING WRITERS
WINNER OF MANY PRESTIGIOUS AWARDS
Olga Tokarczuk (b. 1962) is the best-selling author of six previous novels
(The Journey of the People of the Book, Prawiek and Other Times, E.E., House of Day,
House of Night, Final Stories and Anna in the Catacombs) and two sets of short
stories (The Cupboard and Playing Many Drums). Her books have won several
major prizes in Poland and abroad, and have been translated into a dozen
languages. Notably, the English-language edition of House of Day, House of Night
(Granta, 2002), was shortlisted for the IMPAC Literary Award.
AWARDS AND DISTINCTIONS
Polish Book Publishers’ Association Award
Kościelski Foundation Award
Nike Award – three-times winner of readers’ choice award
Nike Literary Award for the novel Runners
Nominated for the ANGELUS Central European Literary Award for the novel Runners
The Nike Award 2015 winner for the Books of Jacob
FOREIGN LANGUAGE TRANSLATIONS
Armenia, Bulgaria, China, Croatia, Czech Republic, Finland, France, Germany, Italy,
Macedonia, The Netherlands, Romania, Russia, Serbia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden,
Switzerland, Taiwan, Ukraine, UK, US, Turkey
BOOKS BY THE SAME AUTHOR AVAILABLE FROM WYDAWNICTWO
LITERACKIE PUBLISHERS
Novels
House of Day, House of Night
Final Stories
Prawiek and Other Times
Anna in the Catacombs
E.E.
Runners
Guide Your Plow Through the Bones of the Dead
The Books of Jacob
Short Story Collections
The Cupboard
Playing Many Drum
Other
49
The Doll and the Pearl
FI C T I O N
Olga Tokarczuk
Prawiek and Other Times
Prawiek i inne czasy
Keynote
This delightful and inspiring novel about life, time and necessity of travel has
been showered with awards.
Selling points
• Prawiek and Other Times won the author the Kościelski Foundation Award (1997), Nike ‘97 –
Readers’ Choice Award, the “Polityka” Passport (1997) and the Machinerem (1996).
• Nominated for the Nike Literary Award
• Another step for the author up the literary Parnasus
Pages: 300
Category: novel
Rights sold: Bulgaria,
Croatia, China, Czech
Republic (English language),
Czech Republic, Finland,
France, Germany, Italy,
Macedonia, The Netherlands,
Romania, Russia, Serbia,
Slovenia, Spain, Sweden,
Switzerland, Taiwan,
Ukraine
For information on rights
currently available contact
the Author or Rights
Manager
Description
The Prawiek of the title is a time-space in the “middle of the universe,” and
also an ordinary village situated in a Kielce valley. These two worlds – real and
imaginary – are interlinked, they weave through and complement one another.
The author fascinatingly renders the most critical moments in the lives of
a few generations of the intermarried Niebieski and Boski families and their
neighbors, and Prawiek itself, in a metaphorical sense, appears as a place where
the distant past, the present and the future collide. And though the time of
people and things passes, the inevitability of death does not break the chain of
life…
An unforgettable book that has won the hearts of millions of readers. Prawiek –
the place, title and meaning of Olga Tokarczuk’s novel – is the child of a glittering
mysticism, a place which knows no timetables, is reminiscent of another aspect of
reality, of the Time of Prawiek, before the world was colonized and described by
cartographers.
Iris Radish, “Die Zeit”
Prawiek is one of the most ambitious novels of the past few years. If merit were
measured by ambitions, this novel would be a great event. But Tokarczuk’s book
does not require such a yardstick. It has other virtues. The beauty of communing
with nature, the ability to find drama in every nook of existence, and fascinating
existential reflection.
Przemysław Czapliński, “Ex Libris”
Target market
Lovers of Olga Tokarczuk’s prose, magical realism, mythologizing prose,
psychological prose, those interested in philosophy, and in search of
extraordinary and multifaceted books.
50
FI C T I O N
Olga Tokarczuk
House of Day, House of Night
Dom dzienny, dom nocny
Keynote
A wise and seductive book-kaleidoscope, hovering between dream and waking,
which gives the reader the challenging task of confronting his own existence.
Selling points
• Among the final ten nominees for the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award 2004
• Nominated for the Nike Literary Award 1999
• Another step for the author on her way to the literary Parnasus
Description
Pages: 390
Category: novel
Croatia, Czech Republic,
Finland, France, Germany,
Italy, Lithuania, Russia,
Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia,
Sweden, Taiwan, Turkey
Manager
What is the world like when life becomes longing? To be where you aren’t, to have
what you don’t possess, to touch someone who doesn’t exist… There is no escape
from such longing. You have to flee beyond your own body, even beyond yourself.
Get drunk? Sleep for weeks at a time? Lose yourself in activities till dusk? Pray
incessantly?
A fragment from the book
In this atmospheric and reflective book, Olga Tokarczuk writes of the lives of
people from Nowa Ruda and the nearby villages. She weaves tales of events
which took place in contemporary times, but also goes back to the time when
the town was coming to be, revealing at least two faces to the reality, which for
us is both the house of day and the house of night. From these brief, interlocking
sketches a fascinating world emerges, in which good encounters cruelty, the
trivial meets the essential, and objects are silent witnesses to the past…
Tokarczuk enchants, creates things from the void, writes continuations of what she
knows. It’s hard for me to describe her strange ability to keep me turning the pages.
You’ll read this book in one gulp…
Piotr Śliwiński, “Megaron”
Tokarczuk’s prose is clear and stripped of all unnecessary decor. The writer tells
stories with a light touch all her own, which deftly contains the hope, pain and
absurdity of the world. Daily life blends with fantasy, dream with waking, the past
with the present – and it is all incredibly believable. There is, true enough, a great
deal here that is depressing, and many people die, but this does not create a dark
atmosphere. House of Day, House of Night opens our awareness to a remarkably
fresh and resonant Polish talent.
Philip Marsden, “The Observer”
Target market
51
Lovers of Olga Tokarczuk’s prose, those interested in philosophy, psychology,
those in search of extraordinary and multifaceted works, those who admire
mythologizing prose.
FI C T I O N
Olga Tokarczuk
The Doll and the Pearl
Lalka i perła
Keynote
A personal and compelling journey that takes the reader from the author’s
notes in the margins to the world of a famous Polish 19th-century novel.
Selling points
•One of Poland’s best writers, the winner of many prestigious awards
•The Doll and the Pearl is another confirmation of Olga Tokarczuk’s multifaceted talent
Description
Pages: 86
Category: essays
Manager
True, I checked Wokulski’s journey round Paris, step by step. I also studied the map
to see what he saw on it, the great Parisian caterpillar, a sign of the existence of
meaning in the chaos of the city. I took The Doll on the scholarship journey entirely
by accident, I just wanted to read my favorite novel once more – I didn’t imagine
back then that I’d begin writing something about it.
Olga Tokarczuk
The Doll and the Pearl is a literary encounter between one of Poland’s greatest
writers and Bolesław Prus’s The Doll. It’s also an encounter between the past
and the present, the new and the old, and ultimately – a man and a woman.
The author takes The Doll on a fascinating voyage in the footsteps of the
protagonist of her favorite novel, and the reader follows her without batting an
eye.
Target market
Readers of essays, who love to travel, are interested in literature, philosophy,
and are searching for extraordinary and multifaceted books.
52
FI C T I O N
Olga Tokarczuk
Playing on Many Drums
Gra na wielu bębenkach
Keynote
A fascinating clash between the ordinary and the exceptional – a book
saturated with magic and optimism, encouraging people to play the most
beautiful melodies on the ‘drums of life.’
Selling points
•Nominated for the Nike Literary Award
•Another step for the author up the literary Parnasus
Description
Pages: 412
Category: short stories
Croatia, Czech Republic,
Russia, Serbia, Sweden,
Ukraine
Manager
A collection of 19 short stories by one of Poland’s most well-known and
highly‑ranked writers.
The mysteriously constructed first part, made up of four stories, is devoted to
the art of literature, and demonstrates where the line runs between the artist
and the art. The second part tells of the power of imagination, indispensable
for a deeper and fuller experience of the world. The final part concerns the
contemporary world and its accompanying haste, lack of attention and loss.
They all combine into an insightful and precise book, in which magic and
realism are invariably interwoven.
The lure here is typical of Tokarczuk’s prose: the combination of sparseness and
fairy‑tale, detailed precision and poetry, lightness and weight.
Ilma Rakusa, “Neue Zürcher Zeitung”
Olga Tokarczuk conjures worlds out of words, and these worlds contain a great deal
of internal truth. Like in the title story, she pulls out character after character like
rabbits from a hat. She neither creates them nor fakes anything. She ‘only’ knows
that in order to become someone else, you have to subordinate yourself, “leave the
house as A., and come back as B. to a different house.” Olga Tokarczuk can do this,
and convincingly, much like the protagonist in Playing Many Drums.
Krzysztof Masłoń, “Rzeczpospolita”
Target market
Lovers of Olga Tokarczuk’s prose, admirers of short literary forms, those in
search of extraordinary and multifaceted prose, admirers of magical realism and
mythologizing prose.
53
FI C T I O N
Olga Tokarczuk
Runners
Bieguni
Keynote
A thrilling and unsettling literary hybrid – a marvelous travel story,
outstanding thriller, and a remarkable psychological novel. One of a kind.
Selling points
• Nominated for the ANGELUS Central European Literary Award
• Winner of the prestigious Nike Literary Award 2008
• The latest novel by one of Poland’s most popular writers
Description
Pages: 376
Category: novel
Czech Republic, Finland,
Germany, Italy, Russia,
Serbia, Slovenia, Sweden,
Switzerland (French rights),
The Netherlands, Turkay,
Ukraine
Manager
This is a work of fiction, written in Polish by an internationally established
novelist. It consists of long, short and very short stories, the central theme of
which is a way of life that involves non-stop travel. Another major theme in the
book is the history of anatomy and especially the preservation of human tissue,
which represents a journey in the opposite direction, as far as possible inside
the human body. With these two themes woven together to form the main
threads, the structure of the book is unconventional.
Whatever the topic, Tokarczuk’s narrative is colored by her singular way of
approaching familiar ideas from an unusual angle, as if viewing the world
through a distorting mirror.
As leading Polish critic Professor Jerzy Jarzębski has said of this book, it is
“a very intelligent work by a mature author.”
It is an intriguing book that engages the reader’s interest; the variety of
elements is absorbing and enigmatic, as the reader notices and then tries to
find the connections, while being entertained as well as prompted to think
throughout. Confronting the reader with macabre images of mortality mixed
with a warped version of some everyday experiences, it leaves him with the
impression of having been on a dream-like journey through a familiar but
ominous world.
I have always considered her a person of great literary abilities. With Runners I have
my proof. This is one of the most important Polish books I have read for years.
Jerzy Sosnowski (writer, journalist)
Target market
Lovers of ambitious contemporary prose, who love travel, are interested in
philosophy, psychology, who are looking for an extraordinary and multifaceted
book they can return to time and again.
54
FI C T I O N
Olga Tokarczuk
Guide Your Plow Through the Bones
of the Dead
Prowadź swój pług przez kości umarłych
Pages: 320
Category: novel
Manager
55
The main protagonist is Janina Duszejko – once a bridge engineer, today
making ends meet in a school in Kotlina Kłodzka teaching the English language
and geography and taking care of summer homes in the wintertime. Her
passion is astrology, and above all she loves animals. When they get hurt she
intervenes with the police, and scolds people who understand the role of
animals differently than she does. She warns against thoughtless damage to
nature. She sees people’s fates as written in the stars. In her free time she reads
William Blake, translated by her friend Dyzio, and makes friends with animals,
whom she often helps out.
One day she discovers that her neighbor is dead, and then about another
murder, and another… First a poacher, then a commander, then a chairman…
Duszejko abandons the police and tries to find out what has happened. Using
her knowledge of astrology, she develops her own theory: the animals are
taking their revenge on the people.
The police ignore her, considering her a harmless madwoman. Meanwhile, more
people are dying. Each time, the only silent witnesses to these murders are
animals.
Duszejko knows more than anyone else, however, because she knows how to
read the stars…
A cutting-edge novel that expands our vision of the world, keeping the reader
in suspense till the very last page. This novel might be called a moral thriller.
The book will be supplied with illustrations by the cult Czech musician,
filmmaker and comic-book artist Jaromir!
FI C T I O N
Olga Tokarczuk
The Books of Jacob
Księgi Jakubowe
Keynote
A universal, true story of the unprecedented rebellion exacted by Jacob Frank,
falling into everybody’s disfavour… A great journey across seven borders,
five languages and three major religions, not counting the small ones.
Related through the dead, with the author filling in the gaps. Enchanting and
unsettling.
Selling points
•The latest book by one of the most acclaimed Polish writers worldwide.
•Each of her books has become a bestseller, and The Books of Jacob has gone down a storm.
•Author nominated for the Angelus Central European Literature Award.
Pages: 912
•The recipient of many prestigious awards and prizes.
Category:
Contemporary literature
•Winner of the Nike Literary Award 2015.
Rights available:
the Author or Rights Manager
Description
The Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth on the eve of the partitions.
A multicultural, multi-ethnic land closer to Istanbul than to Paris, and a man
from nowhere who will change the fate of thousands of people. A great journey
from peasant cottages, via aristocratic manors, to imperial chambers.
Mid-18th century, Podolia. It is here that Father Benedykt Chmielowski is trying
to describe the whole world in his huge book, and that, at the house of the
castellan’s wife Katarzyna Kossakowska, influential people meet, who will
influence many people’s lives. It is also here, at Elisha Schorr’s house, that Jews
are waiting for the coming of the Messiah.
In Podolia too, there appears a young, handsome and charismatic Jew – Jacob
Leibowitz Frank. The mysterious stranger from faraway Smyrna begins to
proclaim the ideas that will divide the Jewish community. For some he is
a heretic, for others a saviour, who soon attracts a circle of devoted followers.
The unrest he unleashes can change the course of history and transform the
shape of this part of the world.
Olga Tokarczuk pays great attention to the details of the age – the realities,
the architecture, the clothes and smells. We visit aristocratic residences,
Catholic presbyteries and Jewish homesteads, pious and immersed in reading
of mysterious writings. Before us is a bygone Poland, in which Christianity,
Judaism and Islam stood side by side.
“The story of Jacob is so amazing that it is hard to believe that it really happened.”
Olga Tokarczuk
“The Books of Jacob is a fictional and historical novel that is kept in a realistic
convention and refers to magical realism, a family chronicle and a panorama of
a society. It is literature and more than literature.”
56
Przemysław Czapliński, Gazeta Wyborcza
FI C T I O N
“It took Olga Tokarczyk the last five years to write her new novel. Close to a thousand
pages long, it is an enrapturing, breathless read.”
Radio Trójka
“The Books of Jacob is an ambiguous novel, with as many meanings as the
biography on which it is based. Tokarczuk draws upon Jacob Frank’s life story, but
it is not just the main protagonist that she brings to life. Her reconstruction of the
setting of the action is remarkable… Similarly intriguing are the portraits of the
social groups she describes. Yet in the foreground is the irreconcilable conflict of ideas
which, in the world created by Tokarczuk, liberates, destroys, reopens, stigmatises as
the Other, and forces one to discover one’s own weaknesses.”
Bernadetta Darska, Onet.pl books
“With The Books of Jacob, Tokarczyk has entered a new role which perhaps she
has even been readying herself for some time: here, she is like nothing else but an
obstreperous 21st-century prophetess who reaches back into the nation’s history to
give it a good shake, iron it out and interpret it in her own way. Although the action
of The Books of Jacob is set 250 years ago, takes place in small provincial towns or
exotic cities and concerns matters that appear esoteric and obscure, this is a terribly
relevant and important book. Extraordinary reading…”
Aleksandra Lipczak, Culture.pl
Target market
Lovers of ambitious contemporary prose, those interested in philosophy, history,
Judaism, psychology, looking for an unusual, multidimensional book to which
they will keep returning.
57
FI C T I O N
Szczepan Twardoch
Author photograph
© Magda & Michał Kryjakowie
Szczepan Twardoch (b. 1979) is a writer and a journalist, and a sociologist by
education. A true revelation in Polish prose, he is half Silesian and half Polish.
He calls himself a Silesian author who writes in Polish. He is remarkably
hard‑working: he is just over thirty years old and has already written ten books:
novels, short story collections, and essays. His books have received nominations
for the Gdynia Literary Award and the Józef Mackiewicz Literary Award,
and he received the Silver Distinction of the Jerzy Żuławski Literary Award
in 2008. He was given the Polityka Passport for his novel Morphine (2012),
which was also nominated for the Gdynia Literary Award 2013, the prestigious
NIKE Award 2013, the Angelus Central European Literary Award 2013, and the
Culture Guarantee 2013. He is a winner of People’s Choice Nike 2013 Award.
His long-awaited new novel entitled Drach was published in December 2014 to
great acclaim and shortlisted for the NIKE Award.
He likes fast cars, sharp ties and suits, good cuisine, and Spitsbergen, though
not necessarily all at the same time.
58
FI C T I O N
Szczepan Twardoch
Eternal Grunwald
Wieczny Grunwald
Keynote
The re-publication of the enthusiastically received 2010 novel.
Selling points
•For lovers of novels and alternate histories.
Description:
Eternal Grunwald combines the virtues of a brilliant historical fantasy novel
(comparable to the work of Teodor Parnicki) with historiosophical reflections.
Twardoch has reinvented the eternal German/Polish antagonism, culling out the
essence of historical fatalism through the metaphor of an Eternal Grunwald.
(re-edition)
The metaphor of the title describes the clash of the Polish and German spirits,
beyond politics and morality. Iconoclastic, dark thoughts on the Polish/German
bind have been skillfully combined with a rollicking storyline.
Pages: 212
Category:
excl. France
A Knight of the Cross – the son of a Polish king – dies at Grunwald. Though he
perishes, he will live and die many times more. His death only marks the
beginning of the Eternal Grunwald.
It all begins with King Kazimierz’s rape of the fourteen-year-old daughter of
a Nuremberg merchant. When the royal bastard son is born, his father is already
deceased. Paszko lives in the whorehouse where his mother has ended up.
When she too passes away, the boy’s only inheritance is a small knife, already
bloodied, and a kerchief with the royal “K” – the only symbol of his descent. He
sets off on a path which takes him to the fields of Grunwald. All of this is to
discover who he is: a “royal bastard” or the “son of a whore”? A knight or
a murderer? A Pole or a German? A hapless individual or an common plaything
in the hands of history?
In guiding his protagonist through the various temporal spaces, alternate
incarnations and changing realities, Twardoch presents his own version of
Polish/German antagonism. Eternal Grunwald is a dark, blood – and mud-stained
tale in which the author crushes stereotypes of the courtly ethic and Polish
Romanticism. This was a giant step toward the success of Morphine – a novel
which was awarded the POLITYKA Passport, nominated for the NIKE, the
GDYNIA Literary Award, and the Gwarancja Kultury.
“It would be difficult to sum up all the virtues of this splendid novel in such a brief
review. It is remarkably ambitious, tackling a wide range of issues.”
“Szczepan Twardoch has created an alternate version of history, but not in order to
warm the hearts of Poles. Eternal Grunwald is the year’s most intriguing novel.”
Paweł Dunin-Wąsowicz, Polityka
59
FI C T I O N
Szczepan Twardoch
Morphine
Morfina
Keynote
A rollicking novel about a man born in bad times, and a debaucherous artist
hooked on morphine, who has transformed into a demonic, dangerous,
and irresponsible conspirator, husband, and lover…
Selling points
•Winner of Readers’ Choice Nike 2013 Award!
•Winner of the Polityka Passport in 2013!
•An original combination of the fantastic and the traditional historical novel,
with elements of political and psychological thriller.
•A unique protagonist – an unusual individual, an outsider, a powerful man, often a soldier,
and aristocrat, in conflict with the modern world, faithful to the values he espouses,
but also struggling with identity problems.
Pages: 624
Description
Category:
excl. France
Rights sold:
Czech Republic (Host)
Germany (Rowohlt),
France (Noir sur Blanc),
Hungary (Typotex),
Macedonia (Begemot)
Serbia (Dereta)
Slovenia (Cankarjeva Zalozba)
Romania (Casa Cartii de Stiinta)
German edition available
Konstanty Willemann lives in Warsaw, but he is the son of a German aristocrat
and a Polonized Silesian woman, who does not make much of patriotic slogans
and the tradition of heroic soldiers dying for their homelands. He is a cynic,
a scoundrel, and a bon vivant. He is a cheating husband and a bad father.
Konstanty reluctantly takes part in the September Campaign, and when it
collapses, he joins a secret organization with equal reluctance. He does not
want to be a Pole or a German. He does, however, want to get his hands on
more morphine and live his old life as a barfly and a womanizer.
But you cannot escape from history.
In Morphine, Szczepan Twardoch has achieved a rare feat in Polish prose –
he has created an anti-hero whom you cannot help but like. Like the great ones
– Witkacy, Gombrowicz, Littell – the young writer knows how to show a weak,
torn human being enmeshed in history.
A crazed, trance-inducing, and bold novel.
“The Author uses techniques of modernist novel with mastery. The use of internal
monologue, stream of consciousness and free indirect speech brings into mind Döblin’s
Berlin Alexanderplatz as well as Joyce’s Ullysses. Just like Leopold Bloom or Franz
Biberkopf, Konstanty Willeman is an anti-hero who roams the streets of a big city.”
“Like in Littell’s The Kindly Ones, in Twardoch’s Morphine cynicism is mixed with
decadence and obscenity with sentimentalism… Nevertheless the attempt at presenting
the events from Autumn 1939 in Warsaw with the use of the language of the era (instead
of a realistic reenactment of what happened to our mothers and fathers) is fascinating.”
“Twardoch’s novel in a remarkably artful and witty way casts doubt on monumental
stereotypes of both Polish and German culture of memory.”
„Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung”
Target market
60
Novel lovers of all ages, those interested in the history of Poland and alternate
realities.
FI C T I O N
Szczepan Twardoch
Drach
Drach
Keynote
A mysterious witness to history observes with a cold and ruthless eye the
dramatic, passionate lives of two families caught up in the bloody history
of Upper Silesia.
Selling points
•A true revelation of Polish prose.
•Nominated for many prestigious awards and distinctions.
•Winner of the prestigious Polityka Passport in 2012.
•Winner of People’s Choice Nike 2013 Award.
•Drach is on Nike 2015 Award shortlist.
Pages: 400
Category: Novel
Description
Rights sold: Germany (Rowohlt)
An Upper Silesian saga of the 20th century: two Polish families, stormy
Polish‑German relations, the Silesian Uprising, and World War Two.
Love, betrayal, and madness. And a mysterious witness to history,
who observes with a cold and ruthless eye the dramatic, passionate lives
of two families caught up in the bloody history of Upper Silesia.
Józef Draga, born at the close of the 19th century, is serving in the German
army. After the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk he is released from the service and
returns to Silesia. He weds Valeska Konopka, a Silesian with a sizable dowry, but
who scarcely speaks a word of Polish. They lead a prosperous life for the time
and the place in which they live; they have a son together. Józef takes part in an
uprising, witnesses the cruelties of both the Silesian Germans and the Silesian
Poles. In the end he returns to work in the mines.
Unexpectedly, fifteen-year-old Klara, a young nymphomaniac, appears along the
way. Józef has a passionate affair with her, until he finds another man in her
home. In an erotic frenzy he strangles his lover. Fleeing the lynch mob, he hides
out in the psychiatric hospital in Rybnik. At the moment of their separation,
Józef’s wife is carrying their second child…
Drach traces “the beautiful, cruel, sad, comical, and ultimately tragic” fates of
people – as Szczepan Twardoch has put it – inspired by the true story of the
author’s family.
“There is no doubt in my mind – Twardoch is at present a writer endowed with
creative powers of which his peers can only dream.”
Target market
61
Enthusiasts of ambitious contemporary literature, novel lovers, readers
of psychological and dramatic novels, those interested in history.
FI C T I O N
Katarzyna Grochola
by Katarzyna Grochola
62
FI C T I O N
Katarzyna Grochola
THE MOST POPULAR DRAMA NOVEL WRITER IN POLAND,
WHOSE BOOKS SELL BY THE MILLIONS
EACH OF HER BOOKS IS A MAJOR BEST-SELLER
Katarzyna Grochola was born in 1957. She currently lives near Warsaw.
Before taking up journalism, and eventually literature, she worked
as a hospital attendant, proof-reader, actress, customs-office director,
and even as a consultant in a matrimonial office. She has also worked
as a specialist in training at a democratic foundation and as a baker’s
assistant. She likes funny and wise romantic comedies, happy endings
in her own work, and jazz – Miles Davis.
Four-time winner of the Empik “AS” Award for best-selling novel (2001–2006),
Winner of the Ikar publishing prize (2001),
Tespis 2000 [playwright’s competition] awards for “Let me Depart”
and “My Cat Grew Thin”,
“Two Theaters” in Sopot – first prize for her radio play “Bigda’s Coming”
(shared with Andrzej Wajda’s presentation)
Author photograph © K. Dubiel
Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Lithuania, Russia, Ukraine, Vietnam
BOOKS BY KATARZYNA GROCHOLA ON OFFER FROM
WYDAWNICTWO LITERACKIE PUBLISHERS:
Novels
Biting the Earthworm (2004)
The Flutter of Wings (2008)
Not on Your Life! (2009)
Heart on a Sling (2009)
I’ll Show You! (2009)
The Crystal Angel (2009)
The Green Door (2010)
Houston, We Have a Problem (2012)
A Slightly Bigger Monday (2013)
Authorized for Happines (2004)
Application for Love (2004)
Lost Heaven (2014)
Other
63
Romantic Connections and Disconnections, a long interview
with psycho-therapist Andrzej Wiśniewski] (2002)
Tapestry
Marital and Extra-Marital Fun and Games
Loving Relationships and Break Ups
FI C T I O N
Katarzyna Grochola
The Flutter of Wings
Trzepot skrzydeł
Keynote
The dark side of love, the bright face of courage: Helen Fielding meets
Joanne Trollope
Selling points
•Almost 200,000 copies sold up to day.
Description
Pages: 170
Category: Women’s Fiction
excl. English
Rights sold: Russia (AST),
Vietnam (Phu Nu)
English synopsis avaible
The Flutter of Wings is the tale of a young woman who has a husband,
a job and her own home. Everything is seemingly brilliant, as if our
protagonist has everything, and yet Hanka does not radiate happiness.
Behind closed doors, when no one’s looking, her life turns into
a nightmare that she can’t wake up from. For her orderly, well-earning
husband she’s the most important thing there is. Unfortunately, her love
is tragic. But when he makes Hanka lose something of true value in her
life, she decides to free herself from her cul-de-sac of weakness, fear
and powerlessness, forging new ties with the person who might be closest
to her, in a twist ending that catches you off guard.
This is a spine-tingling, startling and intelligent tale about overcoming
your fears, having the right to decide for yourself, and finally – about how
miracles really do happen.
An outstanding book by Katarzyna Grochola… Real literature, splendidly written.
Theatrical perfection… The tension grows with every page…
M. Małkowska, “Rzeczpospolita”
Target market
Lovers of contemporary popular literature, dramatic novels, psychological
dramas, women’s prose; inspirational books
64
FI C T I O N
Katarzyna Grochola
The Crystal Angel
Kryształowy Anioł
Keynote
Poland’s best-loved (and best selling) author of popular women’s literature.
Selling points
•Millions of her books have been sold in Poland
Description
Pages: 544
excl. English
Rights sold: Russia (Eksmo)
You may have your doubts when we suggest that Grochola’s latest book,
The Crystal Angel, is the Hundred Years of Solitude of chick lit. But just read
the book’s first sentence – “Before Sara, on the day before her wouldbe wedding – and it was late afternoon already – spotted her future
(would-be) husband with the legs of her best friend and (would-be) maid
of honor wrapped around his rhythmically gyrating hips, she was a fairly
happy woman” – and try not to think of the opening of Marquez’s famous
novel. Having started her career as writer of lightweight, though much
adored novels, Grochola performed a risky about-face with her previous
novel, The Flutter of Wings, and began challenging her legions of readers
with subject matter and literary tactics seldom seen in the world of pop
lit. With this, her latest novel, Grochola continues the trend, depicting
a woman whose life falls apart after her (would-be) husband’s betrayal,
and the slow process of putting her life together. She does this, however,
without sacrificing any of the affirmation, passion, and fun that made her
a household name to begin with. The end result is that rarest of things –
a work of popular literature admired by the highbrow critics, and a new
classic of chick lit that women might just find their boyfriends reading
on the sly.
The incredible success of Katarzyna Grochola’s books no longer comes
as a surprise to anyone.
Janusz Wróblewski, “Polityka”
Target market
Lovers of contemporary popular literature, dramatic novels, psychological
dramas, women’s prose; inspirational books.
65
FI C T I O N
Katarzyna Grochola
The Green Door
Zielone drzwi
Keynote
The most personal and revealing novel yet by Poland’s reigning queen of the
bestsellers.
Selling points
•Every one of Grochola’s books has topped the bestseller charts, though she continues to
challenge her readers with new and sometimes difficult themes.
•A behind-the-scenes look at the life of an inspiring woman.
Description
Pages: 408
excl. English
Katarzyna Grochola has been saying for years that the most fascinating
plots are written by real life. As if now setting out to prove her point, she
has come out with an openly autobiographical novel – and unsurprisingly,
it is a compulsively readable and life-affirming chronicle of one woman’s path
to become a writer. This took her on a side-track studying medicine (Grochola
was convinced that every great writer had once been a medical doctor, and thus
studied medicine to become a writer), through several relationships, a marriage
and a divorce, a journey to Libya, and a cancerous illness, among many other
events. The style and panache that have endeared Grochola to hundreds of
thousands across Poland are still front and center in this latest novel, and
though she spares her readers none of the heartbreaks of her experience –
the descriptions of her work in the hospital are particularly harrowing – one
ultimately comes away from reading The Green Door fortified, uplifted, and filled
with a sense of wonder at the remarkable things that a life can bring. As she
herself writes: “Every event I write about is real. Every person I write about
truly existed. Every love of mine was real. This is my life. All of it hidden behind
the green door, one of many . . . I shan’t open it wide, just only a crack. Behind
the green one is another – perhaps scarlet? And behind the scarlet one . . .”
With The Green Door we have a chance to get to know the author of our favorite
books, to understand their protagonists, and to believe at last that real life really does
write the best plot lines.
Aleksandra Dylejko, “Dziennik baltycki”
For years Katarzyna Grochola has been conquering the hearts of hundreds of
thousands of faithful readers. They draw strength, hope and faith in their own
capabilities from the protagonists of her books.
“Super nowosci”
Target market
66
Those who adore true stories, autobiographies, or life stories of successful
people, as well as those in search of inspiration, who enjoy themes of triumph
over adversity.
FI C T I O N
Katarzyna Grochola
Houston, We Have a Problem
Houston, mamy problem
Keynote
The latest novel by the best-selling author.
Selling points
• A startling novel – maintained, as usual, in Grochola’s dazzling and witty style – which
is sure to win the hearts of not only Katarzyna Grochola’s faithful readers, but also
stands a chance to conquer new fans – among them men.
Description
Pages: 608
excl. English
Rights sold: Romania
(Eolitara Alfa S.R.L.)
Russia (AST)
The protagonist of the novel is Jeremiasz, a kind and sharp thirty-two-year-old
who has found himself at a crossroads in life. He is a fantastically talented
camera operator, but he has shown himself to be too correct and
uncompromising to make a career in film. Out of work, he quickly becomes
strapped for money, and needs to pay off his apartment. He can’t live with his
mother, after all, who is always meddling in his life. Jeremiasz knows plenty
about women. Heck, he knows everything, maybe even a bit more,
because wherever he happens to be there’s a woman – whether it’s his mother,
or his neighbor on his floor, or his neighbor’s daughter, or Zmora from the floor
below, or his friend, who you can talk to just like one of the guys. But they all
want something from him, and each one surprises him in some way.
Jeremiasz loves the single life, but this is a mask, because he is fascinated
by women and never ceases to be delighted by them. Women – the true
protagonists of this novel – astonish him, and in following his fortunes
we realize that he never knows about or truly understands any of them,
and that life with a woman is hell, but life without one even worse…
Houston, We Have a Problem is a novel about love. Read it and be moved,
but also laugh, for it is filled with warmth, humor, and gentle irony, which
Katarzyna Grochola uses to sketch her protagonist.
Target market
Lovers of contemporary pop literature, women’s literature, “feel-good” books,
books about everyday life, psychological novels, and romantic comedies.
67
FI C T I O N
Katarzyna Grochola
A Slightly Bigger Monday
Trochę większy poniedziałek
Keynote
A Slightly Bigger Monday – for every day of the week, for every month, for every
season and weather, for happiness, for the blues, and for all of evil.
Selling points
•The most popular Polish writer of women’s literature
•For years every one of her books has been a bestseller
•A Slightly Bigger Monday hit the bestseller list at once
•Winner of many awards and distinctions
•Her books have been translated into over a dozen languages
•She has won the hearts of readers around the world
Pages: 308
excl. English
Description
Everyday lives filled with surprising events and colorful characters,
friendships, love, and smaller and greater yearnings.
Her name is Kasia – she is struggling with her parents’ overprotectiveness, with
a new diet, constant hurry and lack of time, excess of work, lack of money, and
a naughty dog. She is tormented by big emotional problems, and smaller ones,
like a dripping faucet or a broken flowerpot.
Every day she learns how to wisely discard her illusions. She knows that not
every toad is a prince, and not every break-up the end of the world. She stops to
have a look around, take a deep breath, and see how beautiful the world is. She
wastes time on important things – such as conversations with close friends till
late in the night. She believes in love and in dreams. She turns tedious everyday
life into an adventure: she doesn’t complain, she looks on the bright side, and
she acts instead of waiting. She is sure that miracles occur every step of the
way. She knows her flaws and can laugh at them. Happy women are the most
beautiful to her. She is always meeting inspiring people on her favorite city
train. She is careful with what she says – she knows that words are powerful.
She knows that it is not important where we spend our time, but how. She loves
to laugh – humor is her most powerful weapon. She loves life. She hates faking
things. She is grateful to have utterly ordinary problems.
She just does her own thing. And every one of her Mondays is a bit bigger,
better, and more beautiful.
68
FI C T I O N
„There, somewhere in the world, it is definitely better, warmer, and safer. Maybe there
are more opportunities, perhaps they respect you more, you can find work and have
enough to put aside for an apartment and a car. Maybe your family will be better,
because you help them out. But yearning will always a part of your life. Because
every choice eliminates something that you didn’t choose. And till the end of your life
this could hold you in the bonds of the ‚what if.’ Don’t let that poison you.
I wish you success, wherever you are and whatever you’re doing.”
Katarzyna Grochola
Target market
Lovers of contemporary popular literature, women’s novels, psychological
novels, feel-good books
69
FI C T I O N
Katarzyna Grochola
Lost Heaven
Zagubione Niebo
Keynote
Short stories for everyone – when you read one, you will wish it were much
longer!
Selling points
•New book by the most popular bestselling Polish female author, selling hundreds of
thousands copies
•Short stories never before published – fresh from the author’s drawer
Description
Pages: 184
excl. English
Rights sold: Russia (AST)
70
Shorter and longer stories depicting various seasons in a woman’s life: one‑time
events, moments, long relationships and break-ups, various fears, hopes
and dreams. They show a woman wearing all sorts of masks: happy, tragic,
doubting, afraid, cheated on, regaining herself and the world…
The author has a fantastic talent of presenting events in such a way that we can
feel as if we were protagonists of those stories, regardless of what age or sex
we are.
In one word the stories speak of what happens to us. And we know that life can
be harsh and rich. By showing this diversity, the author helps us to go on, she
carries stories, dreams, words, symbols and she tells us: don’t worry, MIRACLES
HAPPEN, even more so – they are something ORDINARY. For each and every
single one of us there is a lot of good in the world, we just need to be brave
enough to go out into the world and believe in it.
FI C T I O N
Małgorzata Gutowska-Adamczyk
Małgorzata Gutowska-Adamczyk is an alumnus of the Department
of Theatre Studies at the National Academy of Dramatic Art in Warsaw.
She debuted as the set designer for the Polish National Television series Dad,
but Martin Said….
She has written more than a dozen novels which touch, amuse and delight
ever‑increasing circles of women and girls of all ages. Among her hugely
popular works is the three-volume saga The Cupid Cafe.
Her book How to Kill Your (Inner) Teenager has been adapted for the stage as Forty
and Fighting.
Her novel 13. Perpendicular won her the Polish IBBY Award for Book of the Year
2008.
71
FI C T I O N
Małgorzata Gutowska – Adamczyk
Calendars
Kalendarze
Keynote
Heartwarm contemporary story for readers of all ages that will instill nothing
but positive feelings.
Sales Points
•The author has a cult-like status among women’s fiction authors and all her books are
bestsellers.
Description
Pages: 288
72
“You’ve got a sister!” – her grandmother’s delighted cry awoke her one October
morning. That was the young girl’s first deeply etched memory. From then on
she was a big sister, wiser, responsible. Her road to adulthood began at the age
of six.
She spent every summer holiday at her grandparents’ house in the country.
She would run barefoot over the grass all day long, play with the animals,
and help her grandmother, with whom she had long conversations.
Małgorzata Gutowska-Adamczyk’s novel takes us on a journey to a small town
on the fringes of Warsaw, to rural Mazovia, and to all the memories, images,
impressions and people there. The little girl’s story is narrated by the adult
woman, whose own sons are about to fly the nest. In doing so, she discovers
the beauty of ordinary things. Dinner-table conversations, a family train ride to
the next town, a squeeze of the hand from a loved one – all these used to bring
immense joy and were there for the taking – indeed, perhaps still are.
Calendars is a wise novel which shows that a quiet, apparently boring life can
be a great gift of heart.
FI C T I O N
Hanna Kowalewska
Hanna Kowalewska – a writer and a poet. Her output also includes plays, radio
dramas and film scripts.
She is the author of the bestselling series of novels about an inherited property
called Zawrocie, which is hugely popular with readers and has been translated
into several languages. In 2003 her novel Julita and the Swings was proclaimed
the “Book of the Year” by BOOKS Literary Magazine and was nominated for the
“Silesian Literary Laurels” award. Kowalewska has also published several small
volumes of poetry, a collection of short stories and two novels for young people.
Readers value her books highly, in particular they appreciate the beautiful,
refined style and poetic ambience.
73
FI C T I O N
Hanna Kowalewska
Beyond the Shadow
Tam gdzie nie sięga cień
Keynote
This is the latest book by Poland’s equivalent of Emily Giffin. A moving
family saga which has everything: astonishing secrets, unforeseen emotions,
unbridled passion, forgiveness and everlasting memories. Love and passion are
intertwined with death, loss, hatred and rejection.
Selling points
•One of the most widely-read Polish women’s writers.
•Her books have been translated into other languages including German and Italian.
Description
Pages: 472
THE LONGEST SHADOW IS LEFT BY THOSE WE LOVED THE MOST…
This is a story about rebirth, magic amber charms, letters written in the sand,
the power of passion and human attachments.
Inka, a young graphic designer, who works in a Warsaw shopping mall, gets
a telegram from her aunt Berta, whom she has not seen for a long time.
Her aunt does not have long to live and wants to say farewell and tell her
something very important… Inka arrives in Jantarnia, the seaside resort where
she grew up, but she is met by coolness and even hostility from everyone other
than her kindly aunt. But why? What past events could possibly have led to
such a grim atmosphere prevailing in the family? Why has Inka not answered
telephone calls from her step brother Zbyszek and avoided her home town for
years? Why have her childhood friends not sorted out their personal lives, so
that they are now either on their own or in unhappy relationships?
Distinctive characters, their secrets and a large dose of passion – all these forge
an insightful portrayal of a generation prone to non-committed relationships,
which does not know how to love, yet does not stop longing for love and
searching for it…
You can’t read this book without feeling moved!
Target market
Readers who like contemporary popular literature or women’s novels or novels
about societal norms with a psychological slant or feel-good books.
74
FI C T I O N
Katarzyna Michalak
by Katarzyna Michalak
75
FI C T I O N
Katarzyna Michalak
Katarzyna Michalak (b. 1969) – writer and qualified vet. Author of over
a dozen best-selling novels for women, including Poczekajka, Rok w Poziomce,
(“A year in wild strawberry”, Lato w Jagódce (“Summer in blueberry”),
Wiśniowy dworek (“Cherry manor”), Powrót do Poziomki (“Return to wild
strawberry”).
Her readership is growing at an astonishing rate, with each book rapidly
becoming a hit, breaking popularity records. The fans of the author’s work
constantly emphasise her imagination, empathy and ability to arouse
emotions in readers.
76
FI C T I O N
Katarzyna Michalak
In the Name of Love
W imię miłości
Keynote
Another brilliant and heartwarming novel from Katarzyna Michalak which has
become an instant bestseller on its first publication.
Over 25 000 copies sold up to date!
Pages: 272
There has not been such a moving book since Anne of Green Gables!
Edward, the owner of a beautiful old house on Jabłoniowe Wzgórze, hardly
suspects the revolution that will soon transpire in his life. This revolution is
named Ania – she is ten years old and has just lost everything… A mystery
from the past forces a man to ask what is truly important and if his life has
room for a family. This book will catch you off guard with its wealth of emotion
and its twists and turns. An emotional roller coaster ride is guaranteed!
This is a suspense-filled story about a search to find one’s place on Earth, the
need to be loved, yearning for one’s true family, and the fact that miracles do
happen.
A review from the Lubimy Czytać web site:
In the Name of Love is an extraordinarily emotional read which teaches us that
everyone has a right to make his own mistakes – even if they are the most terrible
ones. Even the worst person, a criminal or a murderer, can turn over a new leaf,
weigh in his conscience, and change his life for the better. This is also a tale of the
power of love that can bloom between a mother and a child, and vice-versa. It
survives everything and cannot be defeated by the worst of evils.
A review from the blog asymaka.blogspot.com
This is a book that gives us hope that it is worth struggling on, seeking one’s place on
Earth, that we cannot give in, particularly when so much depends on us.
I recommend it with all my heart. A guaranteed emotional experience! What won’t
one do in the name of love? It can help us move mountains…
A review from the slowaczytane.wordpress.com blog
This book needs to be mentioned. It speaks less of the fate of a woman with cancer
than of her choices and behavior in her youth, her irresponsibility, fear, and sense of
love. Once again we find so many themes, so many coincidences, or apparent
accidents – nonetheless, it has all be very well composed and creates a coherent
whole.
77
FI C T I O N
A review from the kasiek-mysli.blogspot.com blog
Don’t be fooled by the feel-good, summery cover, don’t judge the book by the author’s
name (Katarzyna Michalak), because she has stopped writing books that are simply
joyful and starry-eyed; she has now begun to describe the dramatic situations that
occur in our lives. I hope Katarzyna’s fans will forgive me, but to my mind these
books that cover the dark side of life come out much better. None of her books have
let me down. In the Name of Love seduced me as well!
A review from the zapatrzonawksiazki.blogspot.com blog
Are you in search of a real tear-jerker? A book which you will not be able to put down
until you have reached the last sentence, and which will linger in your memory long
afterward? If so, I recommend the latest novel by Katarzyna Michalak, which
guarantees all this and more.
A review from the markietanka-mojeksiazki.blogspot.com blog
This book seduced and enchanted me; it is both beautiful and wise. It gives you food
for thought and encourages you to see the world with new eyes. Perhaps somewhere
near you there lives a little Ania in need of help, trying to keep her head up?
Let’s not turn a blind eye! This is the conclusion I had after reading Katarzyna
Michalak’s book.
A review from the recenzje-kiti.blogspot.com blog
In the Name of Love is the latest, and most true-to-life, book by this author; it took
me only a few hours to read. I began the first few sentences and then could not put it
down until the last page. I recommend it to all those who love this author and fine
genre novels.
Author: A review from the book-and-cooking.blogspot.com blog
In the Name of Love is yet another book by this bestselling author. I can say in all
sincerity that it is the best book of those I’ve read by her so far. It is a tale of love,
and of forgiveness for what has gone by. It is a novel where I wished I could shake
more than one of the characters and tell them to wait and think about what they
were doing, to change their minds.
78
FI C T I O N
Katarzyna Michalak
Anything for You
Dla ciebie wszystko
Keynote:
An author that has already made her name, new and fascinating protagonists,
and high emotion in a story worthy of Hollywood!
Selling points:
•A marvelous love story, and a sequel to one of the hottest sellers in recent years!
•Katarzyna Michalak is back to delight readers again!
Description
Pages: 304
A crippled boy who has been abandoned by his mother, a hacker pursued by the
police, and a sensitive and charming young female doctor. What could bring
together such different people?
Ania Kraska, the young protagonist of the bestselling novel In the Name of Love,
is already over twenty. She has graduated in medicine and can finally pursue
her dream – she wants to help people. Moreover, an attractive offer to work
abroad crops up, and her darling Tomek seems head over heels for Ania.
Life, however, can be unpredictable.
Two strangers are standing in Ania’s way – and they both need her very much.
One is escaping from someone and asks Ania for help, putting her at deadly
risk. The other is four years old and has eyes full of fear.
Will Ania manage to help them? Will she save little Piotruś from a miserable
fate? Will she succumb to the charms of Daniel, for whom escape seems the
only way of life?
High emotion, criminal intrigue, mafia scores, and hope for true love are the
ingredients of this compelling read.
79
FI C T I O N
Katarzyna Michalak
I Won’t Give Up the Children
Nie oddam dzieci
Keynote
The latest novel by the Polish Nora Roberts! A dramatic tangle of events, an
encounter with fate, the power of love and forgiveness…
Selling points
•Each of the author’s books has been a bestseller.
•One of the most popular contemporary Polish authors of women’s fiction.
Description
Pages: 304
A moving and profoundly true story about how, even when it seems the rain
will never end, the sun always comes out.
Michał is not only a good and devilishly handsome man, but also an
exceptionally talented surgeon. He has a wife, three children and a fourth on
the way. Unfortunately, his work requires great commitment, and his family is
suffering. Even in his worst nightmares, Michał could not suspect that one rash
decision could change his life so much…
When his three-year-old son and beloved wife are killed in an accident,
Michał falls apart completely. To make matters worse, the perpetrator faces
no consequences. Michał fails to look after his two older children and one
miraculously rescued new-born. At odds with his whole family, who blame him
for the tragedy, he turns to drink, and drifts apart from friends and in particular
his loved ones. And that’s not all – his wife’s sister has initiated proceedings to
take his children away.
Is there anyone who can offer Michał a helping hand at this terrible time? Will
fate again be kind to this family, torn apart by tragedy?
As usual, Katarzyna Michalak moves her readers and whisks them off to the
world she creates, teeming with all kinds of emotions.
“I’ve written… something very drastic and very true that could happen to any of
us…”
Katarzyna Michalak
Target market
Lovers of contemporary popular literature, women’s novels, social, drama and
psychological novels, heart-warming books.
80
FI C T I O N
Janusz Leon Wiśniewski
by Janusz Leon Wiśniewski
81
FI C T I O N
ONE OF THE MOST POPULAR POLISH WRITERS;
MILLIONS OF READERS ENTHUSIASTICALLY SNAP UP
EVERY ONE OF HIS BOOKS.
EACH OF HIS BOOKS IS A MAJOR BEST-SELLER.
HE HAS AN EXCELLENT RELATIONSHIP WITH HIS READERS –
SINCE HIS DEBUT, HE HAS RECEIVED HUNDREDS
OF THOUSANDS OF EMAILS FROM HIS ADMIRERS.
Janusz Leon Wiśniewski – scientist and writer, holder of a doctorate in
information technology and a habilitation in chemistry, author of the
bestselling novels Loneliness on the Net and Repeating Fate, as well as the
short story collections Tension Syndromes, An Intimate Theory of Relativity and
Molecules of Emotion, Scenes from the Life Through the Wall, Close-Up, Blood
Flow, My Greatest Intimacy, Traces, My True Stories. His hugely popular books
have been published in over a dozen countries, with over a million copies
sold in Russia alone. Currently lives and works in Frankfurt am Main.
Russia, Croatia, Ukraine, Czech Republic
BOOKS BY JANUSZ L. WIŚNIEWSKI ON OFFER
FROM WYDAWNICTWO LITERACKIE PUBLISHERS
A Private Relativity Theory (2005)
Molecules of Emotion (2006)
Scenes from the Life through the Wall (2008)
Close-up (2010)
Blood Flow (2011)
My Greatest Intimacy (2012)
Traces (2014)
My True Stories (2015)
Other
Does the World Need Men? (2007)
82
FI C T I O N
Janusz L. Wiśniewski
My True Stories
Moje historie prawdziwe
Keynote
The complete collection of stories of Janusz Leon Wiśniewski, who is able to
listen like no other and prove that each of us has a remarkable story to tell.
Selling points
•Each of this author’s novels becomes a bestseller.
•One of the most popular women’s writers.
•Over one million copies of his books sold in Russia alone.
Description
Pages: 560
Stories of suffering and loneliness, closeness, despair and dreams – a collectors’
edition of the writings of Janusz L. Wiśniewski. A true feast for lovers of the
stories of one of Poland’s most popular writers – at home and abroad.
My True Stories is several hundred pages of the tales that have been captivating
readers for years. They amuse, cause one to reflect, satisfy deep desires, and
stay in the memory for a long time. Wiśniewski is a master of the short form.
With a few images, and sometimes just a few sentences, he is able to deliver
the truth on human nature. Nobody else writes about sexuality, dreams, secrets
and painful disappointments quite like he does.
The stories in this collectors’ edition are arranged by theme: HE, SHE, and
finally THEY can all find something for themselves here.
“Outside of literary fiction is the space of the real world. Without borders. For
over a decade I drew on this truth ravenously. That is how this anthology came
about. The cement binding all the stories together is human emotions – universal,
understandable for everyone, regardless of geography, skin colour, religion or
cultural considerations. I know this with certainty, because for ten years pieces from
this collection – translated into many languages – went on long journeys. Longing,
sorrow, loneliness, contempt, admiration, revenge, tenderness, despair, euphoria,
pride, greed, debauchery, modesty, indifference, desire and above all love are all
ubiquitous on the pages of this book. These were the most important for me ten years
ago, and are today too.”
Target market
Female readers of all generations, lovers of the short form, fans of women’s
literature, heart-warming, therapeutic, psychological and psychologicaldramatic books.
83
FI C T I O N
Adam Lang
Adam Lang is the pen name of Ewa and Krzysztof Nowak – she the author
of over thirty novels for children and young people, one of the most widely
read authors of books for teens, he her husband and untiring collaborator, the
consultant, editor and reviewer of each of her books.
Ewa Nowak is a pedagogue and therapist. She writes columns and short stories
and answers readers’ letters in the youth and parenting magazines Cogito,
Victor Gimnazjalista, Victor Junior, Magazyn 13-tka and Edukacja Twojego Dziecka.
She also contributes to the periodical Sens.
Her first novel, Anything But Mint came out in 2002. At present more than 20 of
her books are available on the market. She also holds several meetings every
year with her readers all over Poland, which are eagerly attended by crowds of
her faithful readers. In addition, she runs creative workshops for both children
and young people, and parents, teachers and psychologists.
In 2009 her novel Spider on a Bike was awarded a distinction in the First Halina
Skrobiszewska Memorial Children’s Literature Competition.
In 2009 her novel A Really Rare Breed was awarded the title Book of the Year by
the Association of Friends of Books for the Young in the Polish Section of IBBY in
the category of teen literature.
Krzysztof Nowak – by profession a mathematician, for nine years he worked
with young people as a teacher. For many years now he has been the constant
companion of his wife, a writer, in her work, the first reader, reviewer and
editor of her novels.
84
FI C T I O N
Adam Lang
Keys
Klucze
Keynote
A real literary event for all lovers of young – adult literature.
Two authors – a couple in real life – teamed up to write one of few novels for
young people with a male protagonist
Sales points
•A new author, a new series and a new male narrator – a rebellious high school student,
who is a hero easy to identify with for male readers. Girls will also be eager to find out
what really is going on with the opposite sex.
Pages: 302
Category: Children’s and Young
Adult Fiction
Description
How many times is it possible to live through the end of the world? Adam
is a teenager and has been through it three times. His father leaving out
of the blue, that accident… After that it was all bearable. He could even
consider himself lucky, but the life of a high-school student tends not to be
an easy one. You’ve always got your mother on your back. Sometimes your
mates are an embarrassment. At school there’s no getting past Domanczyk
(in theory a decent history teacher, but he’s got it in for him and that’s it).
And Madziarska… he wished she might just once not have time for him or go
to a party without him. Dream on! But life had its lighter sides too – Paulina,
the Polish teacher…
Klucze is the first novel to look so openly at young people today – and it’s
written from the perspective of a teenage boy. Girls! Get inside the boys’ heads!
Even in the worst high school in the world, like mine, there’ll always be one good
teacher. In my case it was the Polish teacher. When I’d done my final exams I went
back to school and told her I wanted to write a novel. She looked at me with
a mixture of disbelief and horror. For quite a while she said nothing, and then:
‘If it’s to be a good novel, you have only two options: to be brutally honest or make it
up all the way.’ Thank you, Miss. I took your advice
Adam Lang’s words on the cover of his maiden novel.
85
FI C T I O N
Dorota Terakowska
by Dorota Terakowska
86
FI C T I O N
Dorota Terakowska
Dorota Terakowska (1938–2004) was born in Krakow. She studied sociology
and was an academic worker at the Cultural Sociology Studio from 1965–1968
at the pod Baranami Palace. She is also a well-known Cracovian journalist.
She has belonged to the Polish Journalists’ Association (1971–1981), the Polish
Writers’ Association (since 1989) and the Writers’ and Stage Composers’ Union
(since 1982).
Since the publication of Chewing Gum (1986), she has devoted herself entirely to
literature. She has written fantasy books for children and young people, and is
also eagerly read by adults.
She has received many prestigious awards, including three from the Polish
section of the IBBY. Her book entitled The Witch’s Daughter was inscribed in
1994 on the Hans Christian Andersen Honorary List, and It has been taught in
schools.
Each of Terakowska’s books has made a big impact, not only among the critics,
but among readers in particular – and those of every age. Moreover, her books’
popularity has not subsided, and are found on the bestseller list for years, and
even more importantly – are counted among the classics of Polish literature.
Three awards from the Polish section of the IBBY – the world book council for young
people, for the novels: The Witch’s Daughter (1992), The Solitude of Gods (1998) and
Where the Angels Fall (1999)
Children’s Bestseller Award (1995) for Mr. Gryms’s Mirror
Best Book of Spring ’98 for The Solitude of the Gods
“Shop-Window 2003” booksellers’ award for the most important book of the year:
Bookselling Event category, It
Krakow Book of the Month (April 2003) for It
Golden Ten best books for children in the 1980s for The Lord of Lewaw
Nominated for the Polityka Passport in 1998
In 2002, nominated for the Polish President’s Award for work and artistic activities for
children and young people
Norwegian, Czech, Lithuanian, Italian, Slovakian, Russian, German
87
FI C T I O N
BOOKS BY THE AUTHOR IN THE WYDAWNICTWO LITERACKIE
PUBLISHERS CATALOGUE
Novels
The Witch’s Daughter
Mr. Gryms’s Mirror
It
Cocoon
The Solitude of Gods
Where the Angels Fall
In the Land of the Cat
The Lord of Lewaw
Other
Dorota Terakowska and Jacek Bomba To Be a Family, or:
How to Change throughout Your Entire Life. Part II
A Person’s the Right Address
The Museum of Imaginary Things
88
FI C T I O N
Dorota Terakowska
Cocoon
Poczwarka
Keynote
A book that shook readers to the core – a magical and literary outsider novel
Selling points
•An author whose every book becomes a bestseller
•Cocoon is loved by readers of all ages, and has broken sales records – over 45,000 copies
sold!
Description
Pages: 322
Category: Children’s and
Young Adult Fiction
Rights sold:
Germany (Treibgut),
Lithuania (Writers’ Union
Publishers),
Vietnam (Women’s
Publishing House),
The Ukraine (Grani-T)
Like all great premises, this one is both simple and bold, and makes you
wonder at why no one seems to have thought of it before. In this riveting
novel, best‑selling author Dorota Terakowska takes a pragmatic and highly
successful young couple – model citizens of the Western world and everybody’s
next‑door neighbor – and throws a wrench in their highly-structured existence.
This wrench is the unpredictability of Nature – their baby is born with Down
Syndrome. With an eye that is by turns profoundly critical and reassuringly
empathetic, Terakowska follows this young couple’s efforts to come to terms
with the ruination of their carefully-made plans for their child and their family.
She also helps the reader see the world through the eyes of the Down Syndrome
child, in a remarkably sensitive portrayal that is touching in its heartfelt
simplicity.
The theme is hardly an obvious one for a best-selling novel, but once again
Terakowska has proven that literature with a popular slant can be daring,
adventurous, and meaningful.
For the first time in my life I responded to a book with my whole body, like a child:
after reading the book I couldn’t get up from my chair!
Alicja Baluch, professor of literature
for children and young people
Whoever experiences this story of Myszka will not find it a page-turner, because
they’ll have to take time out to cry. Dorota’s chaotic, disorderly, and moving novel
has great cleansing power.
Jerzy Pilch, writer
Target market
Admirers of psychological and dramatic literature, fantastic realism
89
FI C T I O N
Dorota Terakowska
It
Ono
Keynote
Shattering – a painfully realistic, yet magical and fairy-tale novel that leaves its
mark on the reader.
Selling points
•Extremely popular with readers – over 20,000 copies have been sold so far
•Each of this author’s books becomes a bestseller
•“Shop-Window 2003” booksellers’ award for the most important book of the year
Description
Pages: 472
Young Adult Fiction
Rights sold: Russia (Ripol),
Vietnam (Women’s
Publishing House)
Ewa is nineteen years old. She lives with her family, but she is lonely.
She dreams of a better life, of leaving her impoverished town somewhere
in southern Poland, of love – which will end up changing her fate. The girl’s
misty, film-based imagination collides with brutal reality. Ewa stands before
a choice. She’s looking for signs to point the right way, moreover, she starts
to look at her surroundings through the eyes of her unborn child. She tries to
explain this world to him, and justify it as well. Both Ewa and It have a decision
to make – if this world is worth the effort of childbirth.
An astonishing novel, multidimensional and full of suspense – the author
masterfully uses the realistic idea of showing the internal development of the
young protagonist against the backdrop of her surroundings. We are dealing
with a work that not only “pulls it off,” but which is in many ways innovative.
The mysterious, finely-crafted construction and the splendidly outlined,
expressive characters make this book a real page-turner.
The motivation of the girl who just wants her child to see a tree, or the sky, is very
moving. Dorota doesn’t simplify this subject, but she has turned it into a drama,
which in turn becomes a metaphor.
Gazeta Krakowska
Target market
Admirers of psychological and socially-engaged literature
90
FI C T I O N
Dorota Terakowska
Where the Angels Fall
Tam gdzie spadają Anioły
Keynote
An inspiring and uplifting novel for all ages
Selling points
•Awarded Best Book of the Year (1999) by the Polish section of IBBY
•A book that wears its heart on its sleeve
Description
Pages: 300
Young Adult Fiction
Rights sold:
Czech Republic
(Nakladatelstvi Triton),
Lithuania (Gimtatis Zodis),
Serbia (Propolis Books)
What happens when you watch your guardian angel battle a black angel and
then fall from the sky? If you’re five-year-old Ewa, the protagonist of Where the
Angels Fall, you fail to convince your parents of what you saw, and then watch
your life fall apart, as one piece of bad luck after another comes your way. And
only when you’ve hit rock bottom, picking up a serious case of leukemia, do
your parents believe you, and join you in the search for a feather dropped by
your angel. If you’re Dorota Terakowska, one of Poland’s most beloved popular
literary writers, you use this remarkable premise as an occasion to tackle some
very large questions about the nature of Good and Evil, the distance between
heaven and earth, and the depth of family love. You manage to suspend
ambiguity for the course of the novel as to whether the angels and magical
events are meant to be understood metaphorically, or whether we are to believe
the world is one where fantastical things happen. And as if this were somehow
insufficient, you add a profound knowledge of angel lore and tie the whole
thing in to Bulgakov’s Master and Margerita through direct quotes and thematic
crossover. Ten years later on, When the Angels Fall seems fresher and more
intriguing than ever.
Dorota Terakowska falls into that rare and admirable category of writers
who smuggle contents of real importance in their chosen convention.
Ewa Nowacka, Nowe Książki, 7/99
Where the Angels Fall is literature of the highest caliber. It may even be the finest
piece in Terakowska’s enormously appreciated oeuvre.
Michał Zając, Guliwer 6/1999
91
FI C T I O N
Dorota Terakowska
The Witch’s Daughter
Córka Czarownic
Keynote
A coming-of-age masterpiece that invites comparison with J.R.R. Tolkien and
Ursula Le Guin.
Selling points
•An author whose books remain bestsellers years after publication
•Inscribed on the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen List
•Given an award by the Polish Section of the IBBY
Description
Pages: 360
Young Adult Fiction
Rights sold:
Czech Republic (Albatros),
Italy (Longanesi),
Lithuania (Gimtatis Zodis),
Norway (Eide Forlag),
Slovakia (Slovart),
Slovenia (eBesede),
Ukraine (The Old Lion
Publishing House)
Precious few fantasy books for “children of all ages” successfully cross over and
are read by more than a small circle of enthusiasts. To these must be counted,
however, Dorota Terakowska’s magnificent fairy-tale entitled The Witch’s
Daughter, set in a world peopled with witches, ghosts and kindly animals.
Deep in the woods and far from civilization, an ancient witch brings up
a flaxen-haired young girl who remains nameless till her seventeenth year.
This is Luelle, our protagonist, whose lot it is to fulfil a prophecy and thus help
liberate her oppressed land from the invaders, as the last in a once-proud race
of witches. Part of the charm of Terakowska’s book is that it can be read as
a universal parable of the suffering of the outsider, a very specific metaphor for
the state of occupied Poland (it was written in 1988), or simply an enormously
entertaining fairy tale with enough twists and turns to keep you flying through
the pages. There can only be one explanation for the book’s overwhelming
sales popularity: its blend of seriousness, magic and whimsy make it perfect for
young people growing into serious books, and for older people who would like
to relive the joy they felt as children reading fairy tales, but without having to
curb their IQ’s in the process.
Whether a great metaphor, or just simple fantasy, this is a story well told,
astonishing with its richness of vision and yet simplicity of the world presented,
mixing many interesting observations or even tips on how a lonely person can live
surrounded by crowds. Is this a book for mothers or their daughters… Who knows?
Fantastyka.pl
The sadness of the life of the Child depicted does not take away the joy in reading.
The joy is great, and this means a lot coming from someone who can’t stand fantasy
– like myself. The joy comes from the mystery, the vivid storytelling, the well crafted
sentences and scenes. All of which equals a joy in having completed a journey.
Gazeta Wyborcza
Target market
92
Children and young people, lovers of fantasy, fairy tales
FI C T I O N
Krzysztof Piskorski
Krzysztof Piskorski (b. 1982) is a writer of fantasy and other genres and
a creator of games. He made his debut with the fantasy game The Rulers of Fate,
published in the New Wave series by Portal Publishers. He has published short
stories in the pages of Science Fiction, Magazyn Fantastyczny, and Nowa
Fantastyka, and articles in Chip, Magia i Miecz, and Portal magazines. His book
debut was the novel The Exile in 2005. He is the author of the Tale of the Sands
trilogy, several novels, and many short stories.
He has won many awards and distinctions, including the prestigious ESFS
Encouragement Award for the most promising writers in Europe, the Quentin
Award for fantasy game plots (2001), a nomination for the A. Zajdel Award for
his novel Splinter (2009), and a Żuławski Golden Distinction Award for Splinter
(2009).
93
FI C T I O N
Krzysztof Piskorski
Shadowcarving
Cienioryt
Keynote
A troublemaker and a world full of conspiracies – a novel full of astonishing
adventures and absurd events by one of the most interesting authors of the
younger generation
Selling points
•The winner of many awards and distinctions
•A winner of the prestigious ESFS Encouragement Award for the most promising writers in
Europe
•A novel by one of the most promising writers of Polish fantasy
Description
Pages: 500
Inspired by swashbuckling literature, the Three Musketeers, Arturo
Perez‑Reverte’s series and South American literature, this is a novel about
a troublemaking cavalier, a hired swordsman who is drawn into a multi-layered
conspiracy.
The action takes place in a world that recalls Baroque Spain, where the sun is
no ordinary ball of fire, it is a mystical being, and the shadows play a vital role
in everyday life in the complex Baroque culture.
The ruler of the land is an absolute monarch, a Sun King, and the action picks
up when a certain philosopher constructs a camera obscura, and then begins
showing projections of various objects and figures in public, using the sunlight.
In these projections the King is portrayed as the ideal essence, so beautiful and
noble that few can stand to look at him. The scholars hold heated discussions
as to what this might mean, but a theory quickly emerges that in reality this
projection is the royal antithesis. This would mean that the King is in fact evil
and rotten. Ultimately the inventor is forced to escape, starting an avalanche
of conspiracies in which the protagonist is swiftly embroiled…
Category:
“Krzysztof Piskorski has shown himself to be an able raconteur, who skillfully moves
between the worlds he ingeniously creates.”
Rafał «Capricornus” Śliwak, Książki Polter.pl
Target market
Readers of contemporary prose, adventure literature, thrillers, and fantasy
94
FI C T I O N
Krzysztof Piskorski
Volta
Wolta
Keynote
A steampunk vision of Europe in the first half of the 19th century. Pagan magic
versus contemporary science. Secret associations, Luddites, revolutionaries,
Masons. Politics and war just around the bend. On top of it all, love, envy,
revenge, and spirits from the past.
Selling points
•Winner of many awards and distinctions.
•Winner of the prestigious ESFS Encouragement Award for the most promising writers in
Europe.
Publication date: forthcoming
in 2016
•A novel by one of Poland’s most promising fantasy writers.
Pages: to come
Description
Category:
Volta takes the reader on a journey to an alternate year 1831, where incredible
technology transformed the world, and historical figures from Mickiewicz to
Metternich and Faraday appear in entirely new roles.
The year is 1834. The discovery of ether – the energy of the vacuum – has
altered history. Ether gates have joined Europe with parallel worlds, while wars
and uprisings have followed a new path. No one is surprised at the air ships,
the ether shot puts, the living corpses, or the dragons.
Eliza Żmijewska, an insurgent, poet, the first woman in the Academy of
Sciences, and the heir to a long line of Lithuanian witches, arrives in England,
which is cut off by a continental blockade. Her goal? To find Polish industrialist
and inventor Konrad Załuski, whom his countrymen blame for the disastrous
uprising in Lithuania. And to kill him, to avenge her comrades-in-arms.
In London, drifting through conspiracies and secret brotherhoods, Eliza
stumbles upon other veterans of the uprising. They join forces to try to explain
the secret of what transpired eight years previous in the dark forests on the
Wila River. Who is the real traitor? Why did the uprising collapse? What did the
Russians import from the other side of the ether gates to suppress the
rebellion? The only clues are some hazy recollections and a certain anonymous
epic poem. Does this mean that Załuski – a deeply mysterious figure – is really
innocent?
Volta is a brilliantly written novel with a dynamic plot combining spy and
detective conventions, taking the reader from London, through Paris, to the
mist-shrouded ether factory in Krakow.
“Krzysztof Piskorski has already revealed himself to be a skillful raconteur, nimbly
navigating through the imaginative worlds he creates.”
Rafał “Capricornus” Śliwak, Książki Polter.pl
95
FI C T I O N
Target market
Lovers of fantasy, readers of contemporary prose, adventure literature, and
thrillers.
96
FI C T I O N
Krzysztof Piskorski
Chronicles of the Age of Ether
Kroniki Etheru
Keynote
The chronicles of a century in the world of ether: these are short stories in the
steampunk genre written by one of the most highly-rated fantasy authors of
the younger generation.
Selling points
•The author has won many prizes and awards.
•He is the winner of an “ESFS Encouragement Award”, which is a prestigious honour given
only to the most promising writers in Europe.
•A book by one of the most promising Polish fantasy authors.
Date of publication:
forthcoming in 2016
Description
Part of the fascinating series about Europe in the age of ether. Superb short
stories by one of the most promising Polish fantasy authors, Krzysztof Piskorski,
collected in one volume.
These short stories are set in the world of ether, well-known to Krzysztof
Piskorski’s readers – a world full of murky secrets with conflict looming in the
air. There is a love interest, a spying subplot, and elements of science-fiction and
horror. With his usual brilliance the author reveals the worlds he has created as
he takes the reader on a riveting voyage through his fantasy universe.
This volume of ether age stories by one of the most talented authors of the
younger generation will definitely delight all fantasy fans. Krzysztof Piskorski
leads his reader through mysterious lands, masterfully combining magic,
history and science-fiction.
Pages: to come
Category:
“Krzysztof Piskorski has already made his name as a skilful storyteller, who deftly
moves around the universes he has so ingeniously created.”
Rafał “Capricornus” Śliwak, Książki Polter.pl internet portal
“Fundamentalists, genies and assassins populate this superb book by Krzysztof
Piskorski. Until now the topic of the Middle East, its mythology and religion lay
fallow in Polish fantasy. Genies, magical vaults, houris and alchemists were going
begging for a place in an epic fantasy, which would make a refreshing break from the
all-pervading elves, ogres and dwarves of post-Tolkien times, as well as a nice pretext
for addressing a very topical issue and reflecting on the coexistence of the East and
the West.”
Konrad Godlewski, Gazeta Wyborcza newspaper
Target market
Fantasy fans, readers of contemporary fiction, adventure books and thrillers.
97
FI C T I O N
Krzysztof Piskorski
Splinter
Zadra
Keynote
Murky secrets and the treacherous nature of ether in New Europe dominate in
this steampunk novel by one of the most highly-rated Polish fantasy authors.
Selling points
•This novel is written by one of the most promising Polish fantasy authors.
•He is the winner of an “ESFS Encouragement Award”, which is a prestigious honour given
only to the most promising writers in Europe.
•Splinter has been awarded numerous prizes and distinctions: the gold commendation in
the “Żuławski Literary Prize” competition, runner-up in the category “Best Polish Novel
of 2008” in the Wirtualna Polska internet portal’s opinion poll, runner-up in the category
“Best fantasy book by a Polish author” in the “Fantasy 2008” opinion poll run by the
portal Katedra and a nomination for the “Zajdel Prize” awarded by Fandom Polski, the
confederation of Polish fantasy fan clubs.
Date of publication:
forthcoming in 2016/2017
Pages: to come
Category:
Svience Fiction & Fantasy
Description
An unknown world, full of astonishing phenomena and characters including
some as famous as Napoleon Bonaparte and the illustrious mathematician
Laplace. There are automatic ether guns and airborne trains, guardsmen, spies,
engineers and mad monks.
Illuminated by ether nothing is quite as it seems…
The year is 1819. The age of ether has come to Europe. Nineteenth century
society is gasping in astonishment at the ground-breaking discovery of the age
– ether – whose nature remains a mystery even to great minds.
Further inventions which utilise this extraordinary substance follow: trains,
automatic guns, new weapons, and eventually portals which lead to a parallel
universe called New Europe which is full of mysteries. So how will its fate be
influenced by the spies, the corrupt soldiers, the brazen cutpurses, the leaders
of the aristocracy and last but not least by the native inhabitants?
There are spying scandals, love triangles, sword duels, military campaigns,
unusual discoveries, magic, corpses brought to life and finally a spectacular
finale. Splinter is a truly explosive mixture, which is both innovative and
fascinating: colourful heroes, a mysterious world bordering on lunacy, a fastmoving plot and a superb intermingling of historical and fictional worlds.
“I haven’t been so enthralled by the writing of a modern-day Polish author in a long
time.”
Marta Najman, Esencja internet portal
“In Splinter everything has been carefully considered and planned in meticulous
detail. The key strengths of the book are a universe created using intriguing
parameters and a compelling plot in which the catalysts moving the action
forwards are remarkable real people and clever twists on history. It is history which
98
FI C T I O N
is supposedly different yet based on well-known mechanisms whose essence is not
changed by ether or anything else.”
Agnieszka Chojnowska, Wirtualna Polska internet portal
“The book gives real pleasure to people fascinated by history. It does the same for
those who love good books.”
Jakub Gałka, Esencja internet portal
“Krzysztof Piskorski has already made his name as a skilful storyteller, who deftly
moves around the universes he has so ingeniously created.”
Rafał “Capricornus” Śliwak, Książki Polter.pl internet portal
Target market
Fantasy fans, readers of contemporary fiction, adventure books and thrillers.
99
NO N - F I C T I O N
Franceska Michalska
Franceska Michalska was born in 1923 in Kamienic Podolski. Her childhood
years were spent in the era when the new Soviet rule was taking shape,
when a new social order was being introduced, which turned out to be no
more than a ruthless and cruel form of terror. By some miracle she survived
the great famine in Ukraine, one of the major examples of this terror.
In 1936, when she was twelve years old, she and her family joined
thousands of Poles in being shipped from pre-partition Polish lands
to Kazakhstan; here too, with the severe climate, famine and disease,
survival verged on miraculous.
In 1941 she began her studies in Alma Ata. Moving gradually further west,
through various medical academies, first in Kharkov, then in Chernovitz, she
finally ended up in Poland, though not without difficulty in acquiring
repatriate status. She graduated in medicine from Wrocław University.
Since 1955 she has lived in Siemiatyczy, in the Podlasie region (where she
and her husband had intended to stay only a few years).
She devoted her entire professional life to working in the hospital there,
as an administrator of the children’s ward. To this day she is known
throughout the area as a pediatrician, and is visited by patients from all
over the region and beyond.
100
Franceska Michalska
All the Joy of Living.
In Volhynia, in Kazakhstan, in Poland
Cała radość życia. Na Wołyniu, w Kazachstanie, w Polsce
Keynote
A child’s incredible odyssey through one of the 20th century’s darkest times.
Selling points
•A side of World War Two and a chapter in history virtually unknown in the West
•A book that underlines joy and optimism in life in spite of the harshest adversity
Description
Pages: 176
There are some books that charm you by being so familiar, while others
expand your sense of the world that you live in, and the history that
composes it. All the Joy of Living. In Volhynia, in Kazakhstan, in Poland, the
gripping and extraordinary autobiography of Franceska Michalska,
chronicling her years spent as a child during the Second World War
and the time of the great famine in Ukraine, is this second kind of book
precisely. With her wealth of startling experiences, and her talent
for descriptions so vivid and sensory they approach the surreal, Michalska
pulls the reader into times and landscapes most would find utterly foreign.
“They began cleaning the well. The water sprang forth dirty and red,
but people started drinking it anyway.” “What did we eat? Grandpa went to
the forest and tore down linden leaves […]. He dried them on boards
or sheets, then crushed them into flour and made something like pancakes
out of them.” With a remarkable eye for detail, Michalska’s narrative
combines childlike wonder with one of the most horrific chapters in
European history, and along the way performs the miraculous – she makes
this exotic and remote piece of time something the reader experiences
as immediate and richly compelling.
Bypassing the major historical events and concentrating on personal experiences,
this book makes the reader an authentic witness to history, like it or not.
The reader comes to history from the most important sort of perspective, the point
of view of the individual. He/she has the chance to visualize some of the most
extreme conditions people have ever had to survive.
Wojciech Jaskuła
You devour these incredible memoirs all in one gulp. Many of the anecdotes here
are presented with humor. There are many copies of documents, a few
photographs. And only the memories of people who remained in the fearsome
steppe, with only themselves to rely on, keeps us from feeling a truly carefree joy
of living.
Tadeusz Nyczek, “Przekrój”
101
Sławomir Mrożek
Sławomir Mrożek (1930–2013) – one of the most remarkable Polish
contemporary authors. Prose writer, playwright, satirist, cartoonist
and letter writer. One of the most often staged – both in Poland and
overseas – Polish playwrights. His plays have been translated into
many languages and staged in theatres over the entire world. Holder
of many prestigious awards and honorary mentions, including the Kościelski
Foundation Award and the Polish Culture Foundation Award; decorated
with the National Order of the Legion of Honour.
Author photograph © Michał Łepecki
102
Scenes with Mrożek: 39 Stories
from Different Places and Times,
Mrożek w odsłonach. 39 opowieści z różnych miejsc i czasów, pod redakcją
Magdaleny Miecznickiej
Keynote
Sławomir Mrożek: man of few words. Eccentric. Outsider.
Excellent companion with great sense of humour. Wonderful friend.
Famous writer and playwright in the eyes of his friends and co-workers.
Selling points
•Legendary Polish playwright and author.
•His plays are staged all over the world.
•Holder of many prestigious awards and honorary mentions.
Pages: 412
Description
A touching and surprising portrayal of Sławomir Mrożek composed
of reminiscences of people who knew him best – his loved ones, friends,
acquaintances, co-workers.
Stories and bits and pieces of memories comprise an intimate portrait
of Mrożek parallel to – but also very different from – the one we know
from Journals. A portrait of Mrożek, man of inexhaustible sense of humour,
good friend, loyal companion, always ironical towards his stance
as the commentator of reality. Mrożek who hated 22 Krupnicza Street,
wore a too-short coat, shied away from girls, cooked noodles with meat for
Witold Gombrowicz, spent a New Year’s Eve in Naples with Gustaw
Herling‑Grudziński, sat silent over a glass of Irish whisky with Beckett,
groomed his moustache and fought with a lobster using pliers.
This captivating story starts in Cracow of 1940s – here we get to know
the events from the time of Mrożek’s primary education, studies and living
on 22 Krupnicza Street. Then we move to European and world capitals and
cities of 1960s and 1970s, that is mostly to Chiavari in Italy and Paris.
In 1980s and 1990s we return to Cracow and in 2000 and 2013 we follow
Mrożek’s life in Nice.
About their always unique and unforgettable encounters with Mrożek speak
his writer colleagues, directors and actors working with him on staging
of his plays, journalists following his career for years, photographers who
created his greatest portraits, finally friends, acquaintances, companions
of various of his life events, including: Rita Gombrowicz, Lidia Croce,
Romana Próchnicka, Marta Herling, Antoni Libera, Antoine Van Houtte, Viet
Tu Laura Tran, Ludwik Flaszen, Wojciech Plewiński, Wojciech Pszoniak,
Tadeusz Nyczek, Jerzy Stuhr, Jan Nowicki, Amparo „Payin” Cejudo.
Target market
Admirers of Sławomir Mrożek’s works, readers of journals, memoirs, letters,
those interested in history and culture of 20th century.
103
Tadeusz Pankiewicz
Tadeusz Pankiewicz (1908–1993) – a pharmacist, graduate
of the Jagiellonian University, and owner of the Pod Orłem [Under the
Eagle] Pharmacy in Krakow, which functioned in the Krakow Ghetto,
with the permission of the German authorities, from 1941–1943. For helping
and rescuing Jews, he was given a Righteous among the Nations Medal.
104
Tadeusz Pankiewicz
The Pharmacy in the Krakow Ghetto
Apteka w getcie krakowskim
Keynote
Tadeusz Pankiewicz’s memoir is one of the most important testimonies
to the saving of the Krakow Jews.
Selling points
•One of the most important testimonies on the history of the Krakow Jews
•Moving recollections of the ghetto inhabitant, later awarded the Righteous among the
Nations Medal.
Description
Pages: 280
Rights sold:
Germany (Herbig Verlag),
Italy (Utet)
Complete English translation
available
“From the moment the ‘Jewish district’ was created, I unexpectedly became
its inhabitant, as the owner of the Pod Orłem Pharmacy at Zgody Square 18.”
Tadeusz Pankiewicz
An extraordinarily precise and shattering tale of a tragedy that occurred
not only in Krakow, but in many other cities in Poland. The story of events
that should never be forgotten.
Tadeusz Pankiewicz lived and worked for two-and-a-half years in the ghetto,
and lived through all the stages of its existence: from the closing of the
gates and the first harassments, through the deportations, conducted
with increasing cruelty, until the total liquidation.
During this time, the Pod Orłem Pharmacy served as an asylum and point
of contact between two worlds: the Jewish population shut off behind
the walls and the “free” people living outside of them. Its staff became a link
between these two worlds.
This was a place where you could read the latest news from the front,
find underground press, or get shelter during nighttime arrests. Letters
and packages were left here for people living on the Aryan side, and news
and deliveries were also made the other way.
The few ghetto inhabitants who managed to survive the cruel time
of the war still retain grateful memories of the Pod Orłem Pharmacy
and its proprietor.
Target market
Readers of memoirs, non-fiction, those interested in history,
and the Holocaust in particular.
105
Krzysztof Penderecki,
Katarzyna Janowska, Piotr Mucharski
Krzysztof Penderecki – Polish composer and conductor born in 1933 in Dębica.
The Guardian has called him Poland’s greatest living composer. Among his best
known works are his Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima, St. Luke Passion, Polish
Requiem, Anaklasis, four operas, eight symphonies and other orchestral pieces,
a variety of instrumental concertos, choral settings of mainly religious texts, as
well as chamber and instrumental works.
Penderecki studied music at Jagiellonian University and the Academy of Music
in Kraków. After graduating from the Academy of Music, Penderecki became
a teacher there and he began his career as a composer in 1959 during the
Warsaw Autumn festival. His Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima for string
orchestra and the choral work St. Luke Passion have received popular acclaim.
During his life Penderecki has won several prestigious awards, including the
Commander’s Cross in 1964, the Prix Italia in 1967 and 1968, the Knight’s Cross
of the Order of Polonia Restituta in 1964, three Grammy Awards in 1987, 1998
and 2001, and the University of Louisville Grawemeyer Award for Music
Composition.
Katarzyna Janowska – Polish journalist, acting director of Polish TV cultural
channel TVP Kultura, former director of channel nTalk and editor-in-chief of the
weekly Przekrój. Graduate in film and Polish studies at the Jagiellonian
University. Trained in journalism when working in Gazeta Krakowska. She writes
on cultural matters for the weekly Polityka. Together with Piotr Mucharski she
has conducted a series of TV interviews with the most prominent
representatives of Polish culture, science, humanities and religion (including
Czesław Miłosz, Marek Edelman or Władysław Bartoszewski). The interviews
were also published in a book form by Znak.
Piotr Mucharski – (born in 1959) journalist, editor-in-chief of the weekly
Tygodnik Powszechny (after Adam Boniecki MIC). Co-author of a series of TV
interviews and a book interview with philosopher Barbara Skarga (both with
Katarzyna Janowska). With Kamil Durczok, Polish newcast presenter, he has
co-authored two books. For many years he was the art director of the Conrad
Festival co-organised by Tygodnik Powszechny. Together with Janowska
Mucharski has received the Polish TV Academy award – Wiktor – for the best TV
programme, and the Dariusz Fikus Award for exceptional journalism.
106
Krzysztof Penderecki,
Katarzyna Janowska, Piotr Mucharski
The Penderecki Family. A Saga
Pendereccy. Saga rodzinna
Keynote
Remarkable characters, exceptional talent, difficult decisions, successes and
failures, joys and sorrows. The value of having a shoulder to lean on and a place
to feel at home.
Selling points
•Private life of world-renown composer never before revealed
•Greatest Polish maestro’s more accessible side
Description
Pages: 350
When he sent three musical pieces to a competition for young Polish composers
organised by the Polish Composers’ Association, he won all three prizes.
He is one of the greatest composers of the 20th century. He has devoted all his
life to music, but as he says, his biggest love is… trees.
On his 80th birthday Krzysztof Penderecki is presenting readers with an
exceptional gift: an autobiography, where he reveals his more private side
that has so far remained hidden. Of course those who would like to trace the
Maestro’s musical path will not be disappointed, however this book in the first
place shows Krzysztof Penderecki among his family and friends in Lusławice,
surrounded by trees and sounds.
His grandmother was Armenian and grandfather – German. Father and
grandfather were interested in Greek literature and culture, hence Penderecki
says he was raised in a Meditteranean tradition. The author recollects his
youth: studies, friends, first successes, the beginnings of international fame.
The book includes answers to many questions, which will reveal who Krzysztof
Penderecki is to his family and friends, students and colleagues, what he thinks
about his life and the path that he has traveled, whom he owes his success to,
what he values the most in his life, how and when he spends his leisure time,
when he likes seeing people and when he prefers to be on his own.
Target market
Readers of popular biographies of famous people, diaries, historical novels,
non-fiction, and memoirs; those interested in classical music and the history
of music.
107
Jerzy Pilch
There’s Always Never
Zawsze nie ma nigdy
Keynote
A compelling and frank conversation with one of Poland’s most important prose
writers. The talk flows freely and is full of anecdotes, but it does not sidestep
some very private and difficult subjects.
Selling points
•A conversation with one of Poland’s most important contemporary prose writers.
•An author who has received many key literary awards, including Poland’s most important,
the Nike.
Pages: 260
•A book that provides a new and more intimate perspective on the author of The Mighty
Angel.
•The conversation, conducted by Ewelina Pietrowiak, often broaches very sensitive
subjects, like his difficult relationship with his father, alcoholism, or the author’s
progressive illness.
Description
Anyone with any experience of Jerzy Pilch’s prose knows that the tall tale
is his element. Multi-layered stories in which the same protagonists, places,
and motifs continually return are this author’s trademark, in a “pure sense.”
Pilch undoubtedly loves to tell stories and write about himself and his life. It
would be a mistake, however, to think that this means we know the writer’s
real biography. On the contrary – Pilch loves to deceive, distort, and fabricate.
For many centuries this has been the best way for an author to carve his own
mythology, and a proclivity to mythologize is a weakness of many great writers.
Taking all this into consideration, there is no way to deny the enormous talent
and titanic effort of Ewelina Pietrowiak, who conducted this long interview
with Poland’s most famous writer from Wisła. There’s Always Never is a flowing
conversation that moves in the natural rhythm of a talk between two old
friends. It begins innocently enough, with Pilch’s sizeable library, but some
difficult and sensitive topics soon arise – the writer’s health and his alcohol
problems are recurring motifs in the book, and, in contrast to how they appear
in his novels, in real life they are far less colorful and amusing. There are also
numerous recollections from Pilch’s childhood and youth, as well as his
Lutheran upbringing and the figure of his father. Pilch’s friends and
acquaintances frequently crop up, creating a panorama of the Polish literary
scene of the past few decades. This book is undoubtedly a fine supplement to
the author’s work to date, but it could also serve as an excellent guide to his
prose for all those who have never given it a try (if, indeed, such people exist).
108
Conducting an interview with Pilch – not a short one for a newspaper, but an
in-depth interview that stretches over 250 pages – is no small challenge, given his
reluctance to speak about his private life. Ewelina Pietrowiak has risen to the task
admirably – not only because she knows a great deal about Jerzy Pilch, […] but also
for more substantial reasons. Pietrowiak is an equal interlocutor, because she not
only knows how to hit the mark with a question, but she can also listen intelligently
and draw conclusions.
Maciej Robert, Polityka
And inner pain, depression? Does it strike you often?
At this point there is always some kind of pain. I have a low tolerance for
the world. I got carried away with this solitary life, isolated myself too much.
Few people have visited me on Hoża Street for the last dozen or so years,
ever since I moved here. Yesterday, for example, there was a real throng,
because first there was you, then Andrzej Franaszek, who visits me the only
way it’s possible – after long hemming and hawing on either side.
It seems to me that everything that surrounds us reflects the state of our spirit,
and the spirit of a sick man is lousy. I know theoretically, of course,
that everybody dies, but theories sometimes fail. Out of all the people who were
in my Wisła grade school class, practically everyone is dead. So things look
pretty grim in practice as well.
an excerpt
109
Halina Poświatowska
Halina Poświatowska (1935–1967) was a poet. She fell ill at a very young age,
and the result of her sicknesses was a serious and incurable heart defect. She
studied at Smith College in Northampton and at the Jagiellonian University. She
also had a scholarship in Paris. Her debut came in Gazeta Częstochowska, with
poems about love. She published many volumes of poetry, including Idolatrous
Hymn, The Present Day, Ode to Hands, and One More Recollection.
She wrote reflective love poetry, often delving into the themes of solitude and
death, with which she tried to cope.
110
Halina Poświatowska
Story for a Friend
Opowieść dla przyjaciela
Keynote
A moving tale of an insatiable love of life, of the suffering and acceptance that
come from wisdom.
Selling points
•A book by one of Poland’s most famous poets.
•Halina Poświatowska is called the Polish Sappho.
•Editions of her books have sold several hundred thousand copies in Poland alone.
Publication date: first
edition 1967
Pages: 268
Category: Biography Autobiography - Memoirs
Description
A beautifully written story of love, illness, and a great passion for life. Life,
which is everything – despite the pain and the suffering.
Those who have never before read Halina Poświatowska or have not managed
to fall in love with her poetry should begin with Story for a Friend. This book,
written as a confession to a particular person, is in fact a letter to readers. It is
an autobiographical tale of a poet and a woman who crafted every word she set
down on paper, showing how beautifully one can live and fight for every
minute of this life.
There are two worlds here – one filled with fear and pain, with hospital beds
and illness; the other full of joy, with a love of life and its exploration. There are
travels, unforgettable encounters, intense feelings. There is a heroic struggle for
life – a life beyond the white rooms, a life of laughter and dance.
Both the prose and the poetry of Halina Poświatowska will long remain with
everyone who reads it. Her words strike the reader and move him or her deeply.
This intimate diary addressed to a nameless friend, a shattering description of
the anxieties and obsessions of a person flirting with death on a day-to-day
basis, is the key to interpreting Poświatowska’s highly original and continually
rediscovered poetry.
Target market
Readers of contemporary poetic prose, lovers of Halina Poświatowska’s work.
111
Szczepan Twardoch
Whales and Moths. Memoirs
Wieloryby i ćmy. Dzienniki
Keynote
A multiple self-portrait and a literary story of our times
Selling points
•A contemporary diary full of twists and turns, and a literary tale of the author himself and
the world of today.
•A book of many layers, in which we accompany the writer through the past eight years.
Description
Pages: 276
Way up beyond the Arctic Circle, in Spitsbergen, there is a settlement.
The old roads have been reclaimed by the taiga, the greenhouse panes smashed.
Little remains of that life – rusting hangars, some rubbish, a few dried-up tomato
plants. And a cemetery. With ugly, moulded concrete headstones. Beneath one
lies the body of a one-year-old girl. His son is a year old too. He is back home,
yet it was only so recently that the little boy used to fall asleep on his lap.
Much closer to home, in Silesia, there is no trace now of the old mill. It was taken
down because it was unsafe. The house in which his great-grandfather was born
is also gone, and the mine where his grandfather was fatally injured has been
superseded by a college. History has strewn bones around everywhere.
Some of them belonging to those who look out from the old photographs
in the family album.
Distant travels and close encounters. Observations, comments, reflections.
In his diaries, Twardoch intertwines the pan-human with the generational,
the historical with the contemporary, the familiar with the alien. Whales
and moths is a multiples self-portrait and a literary story of our times.
A self-portrait by Szczepan Twardoch – a father, husband, traveler, reader,
a Silesian, a Cosmopole, a European, but above all, a writer who has
achieved literary success and is taking the time to ponder himself, literature,
and the world that surrounds him.
Potential readers
Enthusiasts of hyped books and popular authors, both young and old, those
interested in the contemporary world; those who have admired Twardoch’s
novels, Morphine and Drach.
112
Danuta Wałęsa
Ed. Piotr Adamowicz
Danuta Wałęsa (b. 1949) – from 1990 to 1995 the First Lady of Poland, social
activist.
On 8 september 1969 she became the wife of Lech Wałęsa, future leader
of Solidarity, president of Poland from 1990 to 1995. On behalf of her
husband she accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on 10 December 1983.
She is the honorary president of the Gdańsk Fund for the Development
of Culture (Fundacja na Rzecz Rozwoju Kultury). Member of the Honorary
Council of the Darboven Idee Grant contest for enterprising women
and member of the Honorary Council of the International Centre for Missing
and Exploited Children.
Piotr Adamowicz – a journalist, he was an active member of the Soldarity
movement in the 1980s. He worked for Agence France Prese in 1988–1992
and was a correspondent for Reuters in 1991–1994. Since 1993 he writes
for Rzeczpospolita daily. He is a social advisor for the Foundation for
Solidarity Centre and European Solidarity Centre.He represents the following
politicians in the Institute for National Remembrance: Bogdan Borusewicz,
Aleksander Hall, Bożena i Maciej Grzywaczewscy, Bogdan Lis, Donald Tusk,
Lech Wałęsa. He is a co-author of an entry in Opposition in the Polish Peaople’s
Republic. A Dictionary of Biographies 1956–1989.
113
Danuta Wałęsa
Dreams and Secrets
Marzenia i tajemnice
Ed. Piotr Adamowicz
THE BESTSELLING POLISH BOOK OF 2011 – OVER 400 000 COPIES SOLD
Pages: 552
Rights sold:
Czech Republic (Euromedia)
Bulgaria (Iztok Zapad)
France (Buchet Chastel)
Portugal (Aletheia)
Romania (Curtea Veche)
Ukraine (Folio)
A biographical tale by Danuta Wałęsowa, her memoirs recounting the story of
her life and the lives of the Wałęsa family. A self-portrait of a woman – mother
and wife – accompanying Lech Wałęsa first when he was a trade unionist,
then an oppositionist, and finally the president, always supporting him
unconditionally.
She was a silent participant and a witness of the most important,
groundbreaking political events in the history of the second half of the 20th
century. She looked at them through the filter of her family, for which she was
responsible, especially when her husband could not stand by her. She had to
bear the distress of her husband the oppositionist being persecuted, she had to
endure the controversies around the trade unionist and politician, and last but
not least learn her new role of the First Lady.
Honest and authentic in its directness, it is a tale of life, growing up in
the countryside, studying and starting the first job. It is a story of major
groundbreaking moments and important people: the husband, the children,
friends, confidants, befriended men of the cloth and other people tied to the
Wałęsa family by friendship and union or political functions.
Dreams and secrets is a truly honest, very intimate and bold private tale about
living in the shadow of one’s husband and of great politics. It is a sometimes
painful and tense confession about the price Danuta Wałęsa and her family had
to pay for being in the centre of political events, of living with Lech Wałęsa.
The story is illustrated with private photographs from the Wałęsas’ archives.
114
Paulina Wilk
Paulina Wilk (b. 1980) – author who took the Polish book market by storm;
documentary and feature writer. For her literary debut Dolls on Fire: Stories from
India (Lalki w ogniu. Opowieści z Indii) she was awarded Arkady Fiedler’s Amber
Butterfly (Bursztynowy Motyl im. Arkadego Fiedlera) for the best travel
and tourist book by a Polish author. Her book was also shortlisted for the Nike
Literary Award and the Beata Pawlak Award. The documentary proved to be
a bestseller sold in over 160 000 copies and it received enthusiastic reviews,
which stressed the author’s literary talent. Paulina Wilk published a children’s
book as well – Adventures of Kazimierz the Teddy Bear (Przygody misia Kazimierza,
2012).
Travelling is her passion. As a documentary writer she has worked in India,
China, Kenya, Brazil or Israel.
Author photograph © Rafał Guz
115
Paulina Wilk
Distinguishing Marks
Znaki szczególne
Keynote
A demanding travel to the past and a difficult walk through the present –
a Bildungsroman of new times
Selling points
•Author who took the book market by storm
•Holder of many prestigious awards and honourable mentions.
•Critics have noticed incredible literary talent of the author, her sensitivity and
perceptiveness in writing
•Book touching upon current matters
Pages: 300
English and German
samples available
Description
An autobiography of the generation born around 1980 and growing up in the
transformation era, at the decline of People’s Republic of Poland and in the first
years of Polish democracy – a book by a rising star of literature
Distinguishing Marks is a story that reads like a great novel, full of turning
points, colourful histories and intense emotions.
Childhood in the 1980s. Final years of the People’s Republic of Poland,
remembered by a child’s memory as an idyllic time devoid of tensions and
hurry, and an era of similarities and commonly experienced deficiency.
First years of transformations, growing up in the epicenter of changes, early
necessity to adapt immediately. An outburst of new dreams, a new face of
competition, emergence of social differences.
Travelling in the 1990s. Generational aspirations to rule the world, to feel at
home everywhere, to make up for the deficiencies on behalf of previous
generations.
Education in the brave new world. Time of secondary school and college,
a generational rush for knowledge. Obsession of gaining cosmopolitan skills,
intensification of competition. Looking up to Europe, joining EU and NATO –
clash of hopes with reality.
A gap between the generation of parents and the growing generation of
freedom – different experience, different expectations, a modified value system,
mutual estrangement.
First decade of the 20th century as time of career making – rapid professional
development, determination to meet goals at work. Consternation caused by
the clash of visions of career with mechanisms of capitalism.
Living on credit. Young years spent on hard work that. Contrary to forecasts –
no freedom, life regulated by corporations and banks.
Everyday exercises in illusion – everything that you have is owned by banks.
First tiredness and disillusionment with freedom.
116
Renaissance of family life. Recreating loose connections. Love, relationships,
kids in a fast-forward reality.
One of the most promising writers daringly tells the story of her generation,
in which a lot of hope was placed and which is written about in the press
probably the most. Distinguishing marks is an important personal comment on
the contemporary world, of Poland, changes in mentality, spirituality and
attitude towards material things.
Target market
Readers of novels, fans of big names in writing, literary events, enthusiasts
of Lalki w ogniu
117
Ludwika Włodek
Ludwika Włodek is a great-granddaughter of Jarosław and Anna
Iwaszkiewicz. She is an assistant professor at the University of Warsaw,
a journalist for Gazeta Wyborcza daily, she writes for Wysokie Obcasy
women’s magazine and Duży Format (reportages about Eastern affairs,
Iran, Jewish culture and women’s issues).
118
Ludwika Włodek
A Tale of the Iwaszkiewicz Family
Pra. Opowieść o rodzinie Iwaszkiewiczów
Keynote
Memoirs of a turbulent period in Polish history, and one of its most
memorable literary figures, Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz – written by his
great‑granddaughter.
Selling points
•Włodek is perhaps of the last generation that can write of Iwaszkiewicz’s life
and the era emotionally, and not historically
•A book which opens a whole, colorful world, and one to which the Western reader
seldom has access
Pages: 384
Right sold: Italy (Apice Libri)
Description
For Ludwika Włodek, writing is a grand adventure, and even readers utterly
unfamiliar with Poland directly before and after the Second World War,
or those with little exposure to the great Polish writer Jarosław Iwaszkiewicz
(whose stories have provided the basis for many of Andrzej Wajda’s films),
cannot fail to fall into Włodek’s infectious way of creating an atmosphere,
of spinning a tale. She culls from a wide range of sources – letters, diaries,
notes, anecdotes – but the most precious source here is Włodek’s own
memory, from which she draws liberally. The result is thus somewhere
between a report from a bygone era and a personal record of a life
with a remarkable family.
Target market
Readers of memoirs and personal histories.
119
Andrzej Andrusiewicz
Andrzej Andrusiewicz (b. 1940) – historian, professor of the University of
Rzeszow, expert on the history of Russia and the countries of Central and
Eastern Europe. Author of more than twenty publications, most of them
concerning Russian history, the Time of Troubles, and the reigns of Peter the
Great and Catherine the Great. His most recent book, Krwawa dekada [The
bloody decade] was published by WL.
120
Andrzej Andrusiewicz
The Romanovs
Romanowowie
Keynote
Fortunes and misfortunes of the creators of Russian power, the last rulers
of Poland, the most powerful family in Eastern Europe.
Sales points
•The author is a renowned expert on Russian history.
•The book deals with the whole period of Romonovs rule – from the days of Polish rule
in the Kremlin to the Bolshevik assassination.
Description
Pages: 632
Category: History
The most powerful dynasty in our region of the world, the authors
of Russia’s might, victims of the Bolshevik revolution, contemporary
pretenders to the Russian throne, the last kings of Poland…
Though they are the object of increasing interest, we still know very little
about them. This book by Andrzej Andrusiewicz describes the history
of the Romanovs from the beginnings of the dynasty, when Mikhail
Romanov seized power in the wake of an anti-Polish uprising, to its tragic
end – the death of the imperial family at the hands of Bolshevik assailants.
Written in the author’s trademark attractive style, this is the story
of the most famous family in Eastern Europe. A story of Russia, but
also of our own history. High-level politics, court scandals, the private
and intimate lives of the tsars and tsarinas – all the Romanovs, both
the household names such as Catherine the Great and Peter the Great,
and those less well remembered, among them Catherine I, the daughter
of a Polish peasant, and Alexander II, the reformer killed by a Polish assassin.
This is history that Poles should know about and many will want to read.
The history of those who made Russia great, the last kings of Poland,
the most powerful line in Eastern Europe.
Target market
Readers interested in Russia, Russian history, the Romanovs,
the 19th century, the lives of the famous.
121
Andrzej Chwalba
Andrzej Chwalba is Jagiellonian University’s professor. His scholarly interests
concern religious, social, cultural and civilizational aspects of history of Poland
and Europe in 19th and 20th centuries. Author of 120 publications, including
books such as: Sacrum and Revolution, Józef Piłsudski: Historian of Military
Affairs, Polish People’s Republic. Special Report – for this book Chwalba received
the Historical Award 2006 from the magazine Polityka. Author of academic
textbooks about 19th century history. Coeditor and coauthor of The Dictionary
of Polish History 1939–1948, editor of Calendar of the History of Poland.
Member of learned societies, e.g. Polish Historical Society, Historical
Commission of Polish Academy of Sciences, Women’s History Commission
of Polish Academy of Sciences, Intern. Tagung der Historkik (in Austria),
European Community Liaison Committee of Historians (Belgium), permanent
associate of the French Centre de recherches d’histoire des movement sociaux et
du syndycalisme.
122
Andrzej Chwalba
Europe’s Suicide.
World War I 1914–1918
Samobójstwo Europy. Pierwsza wojna światowa 1914–1918
Keynote
Everyone knows about World War II but no one can understand it well without
knowing World War I Selling points
•Centenary of World War I
Description
Pages: 648
Category: History
123
“Europe has decided to commit suicide – i.e. war – for fear of death”
For many years have historians insisted that World War II was only a run-off
of World War I. There is no chance to understand not only the history of World
War II but also of the entire modern history of Europe and the world without
knowing the Great War – the first cause of the most crucial phenomena of our
times, including the rise of Poland or Bolshevik and Nazi totalitarianism.
Andrzej Chwalba’s book is the first such comprehensive synthesis of the Great
War in the Polish language. By chronological discussion of the events of the
war, its origins and consequences for modern times, in his characteristic,
approachable style appreciated by many readers, Chwalba takes up many issues
that are passed over in more superficial publications and school textbooks but
that are often crucial for painting the picture of the era: war economy and
strikes, life of war prisoners and epidemics, deserters and soldier rebellions,
the fate of women and physical workers. Chwalba presents a lot of interesting
information about World War I that is crucial to understand our history.
Andrzej Nowak
Andrzej Nowak (b. 1960) is a historian and Sovietologist, a professor at the
History Institute of the Polish Academy of Sciences, head of the Jagiellonian
University Division of Eastern European History. He has written over twenty
books, chiefly devoted to the history and politics of Poland and Russia.
He has guest lectured at many universities abroad, including Cambridge,
Harvard, and Columbia, and has won many awards and distinctions, such as the
Klio Award (1995, 2001), and the Jerzy Giedroyć Award. He is also a right-wing
journalist (publishing in W sieci, among others).
124
Andrzej Nowak
The West’s First Betrayal
Pierwsza zdrada Zachodu
Keynote
A fascinating and thrilling tale of a dark episode in the European history of
the 1920s – fearing war with Soviet Russia, the Western states of Europe were
prepared to hand over Poland to the Bolsheviks…
Sales points
•A thrilling tale that illuminates the Polish/Soviet war of 1920 from a whole new
perspective
•A subject that prompts comparison with the current international situation (Russia’s
actions in Ukraine and the response of the international community)
Pages: 608
•The author is an outstanding specialist in the history of Poland and Russia
Description
Category: History
Nearly one hundred years after the Polish/Bolshevik war, new facts have seen
the light of day – the Western powers were ready to exchange Poland for
a fragile peace treaty with the Soviets
Summer, 1920. After a swift campaign the Soviet army is closing in on Warsaw.
The capital of the newly regained country is preparing to defend its fragile
independence. The eyes of all of Europe are turned toward Poland – if the Red
tide is not staunched here, no one knows how far it will spread.
The decisive battle is to take place at any moment, against a backdrop of
feverish diplomatic talks between representatives of the West and the Russians.
According to previously unrevealed documents, unearthed by Professor Andrzej
Nowak, during these talks the European powers secretly agreed to give Poland
to the Soviets in exchange for a peace agreement…
Over a decade before the shameful Chamberlain appeasement policy, leaving
Czechoslovakia to the mercies of Hitler, the West was ready to attempt a similar
maneuver – this time with regard to Poland and Lenin. Were it not for the
Miracle on the Vistula, Poland would have become part of the Land of the
Soviets, all because of the passivity of the European powers.
This book by Professor Andrzej Nowak, an outstanding historian and
Sovietologist, is a compelling story that casts new light upon events from
several decades past.
Target market
Those interested in politics, international relations, the history of Poland,
and the interwar period; followers of Andrzej Nowak’s journalism
125
Andrzej Leon Sowa
Andrzej Leon Sowa (b. 1946) – a historian, many-year worker at the Institute
of History at the Jagiellonian University and the Jagiellonian Library. His
main areas of research are the First Republic (the 18th century) and the
history of the 20th century.
126
Andrzej Leon Sowa
A Political History of Poland 1944–1991
Historia polityczna Polski 1944–1991
Keynote
Andrzej Leon Sowa reveals the mechanics of the post-war system in Poland
in a fascinating and ruthless manner
Selling points
•Andrzej Sowa is a seasoned scholar of Polish 20th-century history
•An author of books that enjoy a great deal of recognition, and are now considered
classics
Description
Pages: 772
Category: History
The Political History of Poland 1944–1991, written by brilliant historian
Andrzej Leon Sowa, is the first such in-depth work on the post-war
political history of Poland. Essential facts form a full picture of a difficult
period in the country’s history, among them ones known to only a handful
of specialists.
“The following work is not a classic academic textbook,” the author writes
in his introduction. “I see it as a personal synthesis, and a reasonably
exhaustive compendium of knowledge on various political institutions.”
Following this principle, Andrzej Leon Sowa tries to maintain some
objectivity in describing situations, while interweaving his own evaluations
and opinions into this tale of recent Polish history, often provoking
discussion, and always – reflection.
“On every page of Sowa’s book we find evidence of his substantial didactic
training, his experience as a scholar and as an academic teacher. The construction
is clear, the narrative flowing, and the quality and quantity of the information
inspire respect for the author’s efforts.”
Andrzej Chwalba
Target market
Readers of history books, those interested in the history of post-war Poland,
historians, and students.
127
List of Authors Available for Translation
128
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
9.
10.
11.
12.
13.
14.
15.
16.
17.
18.
19.
20.
21.
22.
23.
24.
25.
26.
27.
28.
29.
30.
31.
32.
33.
34.
35.
Aleksandrowicz Julian, „Kartki z dziennika doktora Twardego”
Anderman Janusz, „Fotografie”
Anderman Janusz, „Gra na zwłokę”
Anderman Janusz, „Łańcuch czystych serc”
Anderman Janusz, „Największy słoń na świecie”
Anderman Janusz, „Cały czas”
Anderman Janusz, „Czarne serce”
Andrusiewicz Andrzej, „Romanowowie”
Axer Erwin, „Czwarte ćwiczenia pamięci”
Baniewicz Elżbieta, „Erwin Axer. Teatr słowa i myśli”
Bartoszewski Władysław, Rogulski Rafał & Rydel Jan, „O Niemcach
i Polakach”
Bauman Zygmunt, Obirek Stanisław, „O Bogu i człowieku: rozmowy”
Bereś Stanisław, Konwicki Tadeusz, „Pół wieku czyśćca”
Bikont Piotr, Makłowicz Robert, „Listy pieczętowane sosem, czyli
gdzie karmią najlepiej w Polsce”
Błoński Jan, „25 kawałków”
Błoński Jan, „Biedni Polacy patrzą na getto”
Błoński Jan, „Witkacy za zawsze”
Błoński Jan, „Wszystkie sztuki Sławomira Mrożka”
Błoński Jan, „Wybór pism” t. 1–3
Bocheński Jacek, „Kaprysy starszego pana”
Bolecki Włodzimierz, „Ciemna miłość. Szkice do portretu Gustawa
Herlinga-Grudzińskiego”
Bomba Jacek, Terakowska Dorota, „Być rodziną”, volume 1 and 2
Borkowska Grażyna, „Maria Dąbrowska i Jerzy Stempowski”
Borkowska Grażyna, „Nierozważna i nieromantyczna. O Halinie
Poświatowskiej”
Boy Tadeusz, „Słówka”, selected by H. Markiewicz
Bronner Irena, „Cykady nad Wisłą i Jordanem”
Brylewski Robert, „Kryzys w Babilonie. Autobiografia”
Burzyńska Anna, „Ostatnia miłość i inne kłopoty”
Chętkowski Dariusz, „L.d.d.w. – osierocona generacja”
Chętkowski Dariusz, „Z budy. Czy spuścić ucznia z łańcucha?”
Chrzanowski Tadeusz, „Kresy”
Chwalba Andrzej, „Samobójstwo Europy, czyli I wojna światowa”
Czapliński Przemysław, „Efekt bierności. Literatura w czasie
normalnym”
Czapliński Przemysław, Leciński Maciej, Szybowicz Eliza, Warkocki
Błażej, „Kalendarium życia literackiego 1976 – 2000”
Czapliński Przemysław, „Ślady przełomu”
129
36.
37.
38.
39.
40.
41.
42.
43.
44.
45.
46.
47.
48.
49.
50.
51.
52.
53.
54.
55.
56.
57.
58.
59.
60.
61.
62.
63.
64.
65.
66.
67.
68.
69.
70.
71.
72.
73.
74.
75.
76.
77.
78.
Czapliński Przemysław, „Wzniosłe tęsknoty”
Ćwięk Henryk, „Rotmistrz Sosnowski”
Dasko Henryk, „Dworzec gdański”
Długosz Leszek, „Dusza na ramieniu” (with a CD)
Długosz Leszek, „Piwnica idzie do góry”
Drotkiewicz Agnieszka, „Nieszpory”
Dudzińska Magda, Dudziński Andrzej, „Mały alfabet Magdy i Andrzeja
Dudzińskich”
Dudziński Andrzej, „Pokrak”
Dyduch Grzegorz, Świetlicki Marcin, „Katecheci i frustraci”
Dygat Stanisław, „Podróż”
Dygat Stanisław, „Rozmyślania przy goleniu”
Dygat-Dudzińska Magda, „Biedna pani Morris”
Dygat-Dudzińska Magda, „Kupić dym, sprzedać mgłę’”
Dygat-Dudzińska Magda, „Rozstania”
Elektorowicz Leszek, „Niektóre stronice. Wiersze wybrane”
Fabiański Marcin, „Drugi Rzym”
Ficowski Jerzy „Pantareja”
Ficowski Jerzy, „Zawczas z poniewczasem”
Filipiak Izabela, „Alma”
Filipowicz Kornel, „Cienie”
Fox Marta, „Kobieta zaklęta w kamień”
Fox Marta, „Zuzanna nie istnieje”
Franczak Jerzy, „Da capo”
Franczak Jerzy, „Nieludzka komedia”
Frankowska Karolina, „Zaczaruj mnie”
Gabryś Mirosław, „Zwłoki monterów idą w miasto”
Galewicz Włodzimierz, „Sokrates i Kirke”
Galewicz Włodzimierz, „Z Arystotelesem przez greckie tragedie”
Garbicz Adam, „Kino – wehikuł magiczny”
Glensk Urszula, „Proza wyzwolonej generacji”
Głombiowski Michał, „Wieczorem przyjdź na zócalo”
Głowiński Michał, „Autobiografia”
Głowiński Michał, „Czarne sezony”
Głowiński Michał, „Gombrowicz i nadliteratura”
Głowiński Michał, „Historia jednej topoli”
Głowiński Michał, „Magdalenka z razowego chleba”
Głowiński Michał, „Przywidzenia i figury”
Głowiński Michał, „Skrzydła i pięta”
Grochola Katarzyna, „Cud w eterze” (excluding World English rights)
Grochola Katarzyna, „Houston, mamy problem” (excluding World
English rights)
Grochola Katarzyna, Wiśniewski Andrzej, „Gry i zabawy małżeńskie
i pozamałżeńskie”
Grochola Katarzyna, „Kryształowy Anioł” (excluding World English
rights)
Grochola Katarzyna, Szelągowska Dorota, „Makatka” (excluding Word
English rights)
79.
80.
81.
82.
83.
84.
85.
86.
87.
88.
89.
90.
91.
92.
93.
94.
95.
96.
97.
98.
99.
100.
101.
102.
103.
104.
105.
106.
107.
108.
109.
110.
111.
112.
113.
114.
115.
116.
117.
118.
130
119.
Grochola Katarzyna, „Podanie o miłość” (excluding World English
rights)
Grochola Katarzyna, „Przegryźć dżdżownicę” (excluding World
English rights)
Grochola Katarzyna, „Trochę większy poniedziałek” (excluding World
English rights)
Grochola Katarzyna, „Trzepot skrzydeł” (excluding World English
rights)
Grochola Katarzyna, „Upoważnienie do szczęścia” (excluding World
English rights)
Grochola Katarzyna, „Zielone drzwi” (excluding World English rights)
Grochola Katarzyna, Wiśniewski Andrzej, „Związki i rozwiązki
miłosne”
Gross Natan, „Kim pan jest, panie Grymek”
Grzegorzewska Gaja, „Betonowy pałac”
Grzegorzewska Gaja, „Grób”
Grzegorzewska Gaja, „Topielica”
Grzegorzewska Gaja, „Z czwartku na niedzielę”
Grzegorzewska Gaja, „Żniwiarz”
Grupińska Anka, „Odczytanie Listy. Opowieść o powstańcach
żydowskich”
Górski Klemens, „Obol”
Grzywaczewski Tomasz, „Przez dziki wschód. 800 km śladami słynnej
ucieczki z gułagu”
Grzywaczewski Tomasz, „Życie i śmierć na Drodze Umarłych
Gutowska – Adamczyk Małgorzata, „Kalendarze”
Gutowski Wojciech, „Z próżni nieba ku religii życia”
Harasymowicz Jerzy, „Późne lato”
Hartwig Julia, „Dzienniki”
Hen Józef, „Dziennika ciąg dalszy”
Hennelowa Józefa, „O Kościele”
Herling-Grudziński Gustaw, „Przewodnik po sobie samym”
Huberach Marek S., „Balsam długiego pożegnania”
Huberath Marek S., „Miasta pod Skałą”
Hubertah Marek S., „Vatran Auraio”
Janowska Katarzyna, Bomba Jacek, „Rozmowy o seksie i seksualności”
Jan Paweł II, „Autobiografia”
Jan Paweł II, „Elementarz Jana Pawła II, cz. I i II”
Janko Anna, „Dziewczynka z zapałkami” (excluding German rights)
Janko Anna, „Mała Zagłada”
Janko Anna, „Pasja według świętej Hanki” (excluding German rights”
Jarzębski Jerzy, „Wszechświat Lema”
Jastrun Mieczysław, „Dzienniki”
Jeromin-Gałuszka Grażyna, „Nie zostawiaj mnie”
Jurewicz Aleksander, „Dzień przed końcem świata”
Kaczmarek Ryszard, „Polacy w armii Kajzera”
Kaczmarek Ryszard, „Polacy w Wermachcie”
Kaczmarek Ryszard, „Powstania śląskie”
Kajdański Edward, „Medycyna chińska dla każdego”
120.
121.
122.
123.
124.
125.
126.
127.
128.
129.
130.
131.
132.
133.
134.
135.
136.
137.
138.
139.
140.
141.
142.
143.
144.
145.
146.
147.
148.
149.
150.
151.
152.
153.
154.
155.
156.
157.
158.
159.
160.
161.
162.
163.
131
164.
Kamińska Anna, „Adoptowani”
Karpiński Daniel, „Fikcja”
Karpowicz Ignacy, „Balladyny i romanse”
Karpowicz Ignacy, „Cud”
Karpowicz Ignacy, „Gesty”
Karpowicz Ignacy, „Niehalo”
Karpowicz Ignacy, „Ości”
Karpowicz Ignacy, „Sońka”
Kasdepke Grzegorz, „Sprzedawca uśmiechów. Poradnik hodowcy
aniołów aniołów”
Kępiński Antoni, „Autoportret człowieka”
Kępiński Antoni, „Jak leczyć i poznawać człowieka”
Kępiński Antoni, „Lęk”
Kępiński Antoni, „Podstawowe zagadnienia współczesnej psychiatrii”
Kępiński Antoni, „Poznanie chorego”
Kępiński Antoni, „Psychopatie”
Kępiński Antoni, „Psychopatologia nerwic”
Kępiński Antoni, „Rytm życia”
Kępiński Antoni, „Schizofrenia”
Kępiński Antoni, „Z psychopatologii życia seksualnego”
Kern Ludwik Jerzy, „Abecadłowo”
Kern Ludwik Jerzy, „Cztery łapy”
Kern Ludwik Jerzy, „Dyskretne podglądanie rodaków”
Kern Ludwik Jerzy, „Ferdynand Wspaniały”
Kern Ludwik Jerzy, „Imiona nadwiślańskie”
Kern Ludwik Jerzy, „Litery cztery
Kern Ludwik Jerzy, „Zbudź się, Ferdynandzie”
Klejnocki Jarosław, „Opcje na śmierć”
Klejnocki Jarosław, „Południk 21”
Kłoczowski Jan Andrzej, Badeni Joachim, Jan Strzałka, Artur Sporniak,
„Boskie oko”
Kobza Piotr, „Polskie rekolekcje”
Koehler Krzysztof, „Trzecia część”
Komar Michał, Petelicki Stanisław, „Generał Grom”
Komendołowicz Iza, „Elka”
Kopka Bogusław, „Gułag nad Wisłą”
Kornhauser Julian, „Księżyc jak mandarynka”
Kornhauser Julian, „Poezja i codzienność”
Kornhauser Julian, „Uśmiech Sfinksa. O poezji Zbigniewa Herberta”
Kott Jan, „Szekspir współczesny”
Kott Jan, „Szekspir współczesny 2”
Kowal Paweł, „Pomiędzy Majdanem a Smoleńskiem. Rozmawiają
Paweł Legutko i Dobrosław
Rodziewicz”
Kowalewska Hanna, „Tam gdzie nie sięga już cień”
Kowalewski Włodzimierz, „Ludzie moralni”
Kozioł Urszula, „Deseń”
Kozioł Urszula, „Supliki”
165.
166.
167.
168.
169.
170.
171.
172.
173.
174.
175.
176.
177.
178.
179.
180.
181.
182.
183.
184.
185.
186.
187.
188.
189.
190.
191.
192.
193.
194.
195.
196.
197.
198.
199.
200.
201.
202.
203.
204.
205.
206.
207.
208.
209.
210.
132
211.
Krajewski Kazimierz, „Na straconych posterunkach. Armia Krajowa na
Wschodzie”
Kraskowska Ewa, „Siostry Brönte”
Krakowiak – Kondracka Agnieszka, „Cudze jabłka”
Krakowiak – Kondracka Agnieszka, „Jajko z niespodzianką”
Krenz Katarzyna, „Lekcja tańca”
Krenz Katarzyna, „Podróż”
Krupiński Wacław, „Głowy piwniczne”
Kruszyński Zbigniew, „Ostatni raport”
Kruszyński Zbigniew, „Powrót Aleksandra”
Kruszyński Zbigniew, „Szkice historyczne”
Kubica-Heller Grażyna, „Siostry Malinowskiego”
Kuryluk Ewa, „Frascati” (excluding English rights)
Kuryluk Ewa, „Goldi”
Kwiatkowski Tadeusz, „Lunapark”
Kydryński Lucjan, „Kroniki rodzinne”
Lang Adam, „Klucze”
Legutko Piotr (ed.), „Rozmowy o dorastaniu”
Legutko Piotr, Rodziewicz Dobrosław, „Mity czwartej władzy”
Leociak Jacek, „O ratujących z Zagłady”
Ligęza Wojciech, „O poezji Wisławy Szymborskiej. Świat w stanie
korekty”
Lipko Tomasz, „Notebook”
Lipska Ewa, „1999”
Lipska Ewa, „Droga pani Schubert”
Lipska Ewa, „Gdzie Indziej”
Lipska Ewa, „Ja”
Lipska Ewa, „Pogłos”
Lipska Ewa, „Pomarańcza Newtona”
Lipska Ewa, „Sefer”
Lipska Ewa, „Sklepy zoologiczne”
Lipska Ewa, „Uwaga: stopień”
Lisowski Krzysztof, „Feng shui dla bezdomnych”
Lupa Krystian, Matkowska-Święs Beata, „Podróż do Nieuchwytnego”
Lupa Krystian, „Utopia 2. Penetracje”
Łopuszański Piotr, „Leśmianowie”
Madej Bogdan, „Abonament”
Madej Bogdan, „Maść na szczury”
Madej Bogdan, „Piękne kalalie”
Madeyska Ewa, „Katoniela”
Maicher Katarzyna, Persymona
Majewski Lech, „Metafizyka”
Makowski Jarosław (ed.), „Dziesięć ważnych słów”
Maleńczuk Maciej, „Chamstwo w państwie”
Małecki Jan, „Historia Krakowa”
Margański Janusz, „Geografia pragnień. Opowieść o Gombrowiczu”
Markiewicz Henryk, „Cytaty mądre i zabawne”
Markiewicz Henryk, „Jeszcze dopowiedzenia”
Markiewicz Henryk, „Mój życiorys polonistyczny z historią w tle”
212.
213.
214.
215.
216.
217.
218.
219.
220.
221.
222.
223.
224.
225.
226.
227.
228.
229.
230.
231.
232.
233.
234.
235.
236.
237.
238.
239.
240.
241.
242.
243.
244.
245.
246.
247.
248.
249.
250.
251.
252.
253.
254.
255.
256.
133
257.
Markiewicz Henryk, Romanowski Andrzej, „Skrzydlate słowa”
Markowski Michał Paweł, „Anatomia ciekawości”
Markowski Michał Paweł, „Czarny nurt. Gombrowicz, świat,
literatura”
Masłowska Dorota, „Jak zostałam wiedźmą”
Masłowska Dorota, Drotkiewicz Agnieszka, „Dusza światowa”
Masłoń Krzysztof, „Lekcja historii najnowszej”
Maślanka Mariusz, „Jutro będzie lepiej”
Mateja Anna, „Cud w medycynie”
Mateja Anna, „Cud w medycynie – historie pacjentów”
Matkowska-Święs Beata, „Krakowskie gadanie”
Matywiecki Piotr, „Którędy na zawsze”
Matywiecki Piotr, „Powietrze i cień”
Matywiecki Piotr, „Ta chmura powraca”
Matywiecki Piotr, „Widownia”
Michalak Katarzyna, „Nie oddam dzieci”
Michalak Katarzyna, „Gra o Ferrin”
Michalak Katarzyna, „Powrót do Ferrinu”
Michalak Katarzyna, „Wojna o Ferrin”
Michalak Katarzyna, „Pani Ferrinu”
Michalak Katarzyna, „Lato w Jagódce”
Michalak Katarzyna, „Powrót do Poziomki”
Michalak Katarzyna, „Rok w Poziomce”
Michalak Katarzyna, „Wiśniowy dworek”
Michalska Francesca, „Cała radość życia’
Michałowska Danuta, „Pamięć nie zawsze święta. Wspomnienia”
Miecznicka Magdalena, „Cudowna kariera Magdy M”
Miecznicka Magdalena, „Złość”
Mikołajewski Jarosław, „Herbata dla wielbłąda”
Mikołajewski Jarosław, „Męski zmysł”
Mikołajewski Jarosław, „ Na wdechu”
Mikołajewski Jarosław, „Wyręka”
Mikołajewski Jarosław, „Zbite szklanki”
Mikrut Grzegorz, Wiktor Krzysztof, „Sekty za zamkniętymi drzwiami”
Miłaszewski Stanisław, „Poezje”
Mitosek Zofia, „Pelargonie”
„Mrożek w odsłonach. 39 opowieści z różnych miejsc i czasów”,
Moczulski Leszek Aleksander, „Jej nigdy za późno”
Motyka Grzegorz, „Od rzezi wołyńskiej do akcji „Wisła”.
Konflikt polsko – ukraiński 1943 – 1947”
Mrożek Sławomir, Tarn Andrzej, „Listy”
Musiał Stanisław, „Dwanaście koszy ułomków”
Musiał Stanisław, „Czarne jest czarne”
Muszyński Andrzej, „Podkrzywdzie”
Komendołowicz Iza, „Elka. Wspomnienie o Elżbiecie Czyżewskiej”
Nasiłowska Anna, „Czteroletnia filozofka”
Nasiłowska Anna, „Jean Paul Sartre i Simone de Beauvoir”
Niemczuk Jerzy, „Bat na koty”
258.
259.
260.
261.
262.
263.
264.
265.
266.
267.
268.
269.
270.
271.
272.
273.
274.
275.
276.
277.
278.
279.
280.
281.
282.
283.
284.
285.
286.
287.
288.
289.
290.
291.
292.
293.
294.
295.
296.
297.
298.
299.
300.
301.
302.
303.
134
304.
Nowak Andrzej, „Pierwsza zdrada Zachodu”
Nowak Andrzej, „Zapomniany appeasement”
Nowak Ewa, „Bransoletka”
Nowak Katarzyna, „Kasika Mowka”
Nowak Katarzyna T., „Moja mama czarownica. Opowieść o Dorocie
Terakowskiej”
Nyczek Tadeusz, „Kos. O poezji Adama Zagajewskiego”
Nyczek Tadeusz, „Nawozy sztuczne”
Odija Daniel, „Niech to nie będzie sen”
Olejnik Agnieszka, „Dante na tropie”
Olejnik Agnieszka, „Zabłądziłam”
Oleś Owczarkowa Teresa, „Rauska”
Olszewski Michał, „Low tech”
Orbitowski Łukasz, „Nadchodzi”
Orbitowski Łukasz, „Święty Wrocław”
Orbitowski Łukasz, „Tracę ciepło”
Orłoś Kazimierz, „Bez Ciebie nie mogę żyć”
Orłoś Kazimierz, „Dom pod Lutnią”
Orłoś Kazimierz, „Drewniane mosty”
Orłoś Kazimierz, „Historia leśnych kochanków i inne opowiadania”
Orłoś Kazimierz, „Opowieść mazurska”
Orłoś Kazimierz, „Wspomnienia rodzinne”
Ostaszewski Robert, „Dola idola i inne bajki z raju konsumenta”
Orwid Maria, „Przeżyć… I co dalej?”
Orwid Maria „Trauma”
Paczkowski Andrzej, „Droga do mniejszego zła”
Penderecki Krzysztof, „Pendereccy. Saga rodzinna”
Pankiewicz Tadeusz, „Apteka w getcie krakowskim”
Peiper Tadeusz, „Wśród ludzi na scenach”
Pepłoński Andrzej, „Wojna o tajemnice. W tajnej służbie Drugiej
Rzeczpospolitej 1918 – 1944”
Petelicki Sławomir, Michał Komar, „GROM: Siła i honor”
Pilch Jerzy, „Bezpowrotnie utracona leworęczność”
Pilch Jerzy, „Mój ojciec doktor Faustus”
Pilch Jerzy, „Rozpacz z powodu utraty furmanki”
Pilch Jerzy, „Spis cudzołożnic”
Pilch Jerzy, „Tezy o głupocie, piciu i umieraniu”
Pilch Jerzy, „Tysiąc spokojnych miast”
Pilch Jerzy, „Upadek człowieka pod Dworcem Centralnym”
Pilch Jerzy, „Wschodni akcent”
Pilch Jerzy, „Wyznania twórcy pokątnej literatury erotycznej”
Pilch Jerzy, „Zawsze nie ma nigdy”
Pilch Jerzy, „Zuza albo czas oddalenia”
Pilot Marian, „Nowy Matecznik”
Pilot Marian, „Osobnik”
Pilot Marian, „Pantałyk”
Pilot Marian, „Pióropusz”
Piskorski Krzysztof, „Cienioryt”
Piskorski Krzysztof, „Księgi eteru”
305.
306.
307.
308.
309.
310.
311.
312.
313.
314.
315.
316.
317.
318.
319.
320.
321.
322.
323.
324.
325.
326.
327.
328.
329.
330.
331.
332.
333.
334.
335.
336.
337.
338.
339.
340.
341.
342.
343.
344.
345.
346.
347.
348.
349.
350.
135
351.
Piskorski Krzysztof, „Wolta”
Podraza-Kwiatkowska Maria, „Wolność i transcendencja”
Porębski Mieczysław, „Krytycy i sztuka”
Porębski Mieczysław, „Nowosielski”
Porębski Mieczysław, „Polskość jako sytuacja”
Porębski Mieczysław, „Spotkanie z Ablem”
Porębski Mieczysław, „Wakacje Sinobrodego”
Polkowski Jan, „Elegie z Tymowskich Gór”
Poświatowska Halina, „Opowieść dla przyjaciela”
Poświatowska Halina, „Wiersze”
Protasiuk Michał, „Święto rewolucji”
Praca Zbiorowa, „Kalendarium dziejów Polski”
Przygodzki Błażej, „Niech cię strawi płomień”
Przygodzki Błażej, „Z chirurgiczna precyzją”
Przygodzki Błażej, „Szczera prawda”
Pszoniak Wojciech, Komar Michał, „Rozmowy”
Purchla Jacek, „Przewodnik po architekturze Krakowa”
Pyrkosz Witold, Grużewska Anna, Komendołowicz Iza, „Podwójnie
urodzony”
Rogowski Sławomir, „Zima stulecia”
Rolicz-Lieder Wacław, „Wybór poezji”
Romanowski Wiesław, „Śmierć we Lwowie”
Romanowski Wiesław, „Ukraina. Przystanek wolność”
Ronikier Adam, „Pamiętniki”
Ronikier Joanna, „Piotr”
Różewicz Tadeusz, „Duszyczka”
Ryciak Urszula, „Petentka w miłości. O Agnieszce Osieckiej”
Sadaj Ryszard, „Terapia Pauliny T.”
Sapieżyna Maria ze Zdzichowskich, „Moje życie, mój czas”
Sapieżyna Matylda, „My i nasze Siedliska”
Słomczyńska-Pierzchalska Małgorzata, „Nie mogłem być inny. Zagadka
Macieja Słomczyńskiego”
Sobolewska Anna, „Maski Pana Boga”
Sosnowski Jerzy, „Ach!”
Sosnowski Jerzy, „Instalacja Idziego”
Sosnowski Jerzy, „Spotakamy się w Honolulu”
Sowa Andrzej Leon, „Historia polityczna Polski 1944 – 1991”
Spodaryk Mikolaj, Gabrowska Elżbieta, „Wiem, co je moje dziecko”
Stala Marian, „Przeszukiwanie czasu”
Staniszkis Jadwiga, „O władzy i bezsilności”
Staniszkis Jadwiga, Cieślar Artur, „Wschód i zachód. Spotkania”
Stańko Tomasz, Księżyk Rafał, „Desperado! Autobiografia”
Stawiarska Agnieszka, „Przedwojenny Gombrowicz”
Stefko Jolanta, „Ja nikogo nie lubię oprócz siebie”
Stefko Jolanta, „Kolorowe wiersze”
Stefko Jolanta, „Omnis moriar”
Stefko Jolanta, „Pół książki o kocie, pół książki o psie”
Stefko Jolanta, „Wódociąg”
Stephan Halina, „Życie w przekładzie”
352.
353.
354.
355.
356.
357.
358.
359.
360.
361.
362.
363.
364.
365.
366.
367.
368.
369.
370.
371.
372.
373.
374.
375.
376.
377.
378.
379.
380.
381.
382.
383.
384.
385.
386.
387.
388.
389.
390.
391.
392.
393.
136
394.
Stryczek Jacek ks., „Pieniądze. W świetle Ewangelii. Nowa opowieść
o biedzie i zarabianiu”
Strzałka Jan, „O psach, kotach i aniołach”
Strzałka Jan, Sporniak Artur, „Autobiografia – rozmowy z ojcem
Badenim”
Stuhr Jerzy, „Stuhrowie. Historie rodzinne”
Stuhr Jerzy, „Tak sobie myślę”
Stuhr Marianna, „Kacperek w bibliotece”
Sumińska Dorota, „Autobiografia na czterech łapach”
Sumińska Dorota, „Dalej na czterech łapach”
Sumińska Dorota, „Dlaczego oczy kota świecą w nocy i inne sekrety
świata zwierząt”
Sumińska Dorota, „Jak jeż Jerzy został ojcem”
Sumińska Dorota, Krzywicka Dorota, „Jak żyć w zgodzie z większymi
i mniejszymi domownikami. Rozmawia Irena A. Stanisławska”
Sumińska Dorota, „Świat według psa”
Sumińska Dorota, „Zwierz w łóżku”
Sumińska Dorota, „Zwykłe, niezwykłe życie”
Szatkowska Anna, „Był dom… Wspomnienia”
Szewc Piotr, „Całkiem prywatnie”
Szczawiński Wojciech, „Myśli przy końcu drogi”
Szczepański Jan Józef, „Przed Nieznanym Trybunałem”
Szczepański Jan Józef, „Rozłogi”
Szczepkowska Joanna, „Fragmenty z życia lustra”
Szczepkowska Joanna, „Sześć minut przed czasem”
Szczepkowska Joanna, „Goła baba”
Szewc Piotr, „Bociany nad powiatem”
Szewc Piotr, „Pajęczyna”
Szewc Piotr, „Zmierzchy i poranki”
Szlosarek Artur, „Wiersze powtórzone”
Sztaudynger Jan, Sztaudynger Kaliszewiczowi Anna, „Chwalipięta,
czyli rozmowy z Tatą”
Sztaudynger Jan, „Piórka”
Sztaudynger Jan, „Puch ostu”
Sztaudynger Jan, „Szczęście z datą wczorajszą”
Szuber Janusz, „Tym razem wyraźnie”
Szuber Janusz, „Wpis do ksiąg wieczystych”
Szymańska Adriana, „In terra”
Szymborska Wisława, „Lektury nadobowiązkowe”
Świda Ziemba Hanna, „Młodzież PRL-u. Portrety pokoleń”
Świda-Ziemba Hanna, „Młodzi w nowym świecie”
Świda-Ziemba Hanna, „Urwany lot”
Terakowska Dorota, „Być rodziną, czyli jak zmieniamy się przez całe
życie”
Terakowska Dorota, „Córka czarownic”
Terakowska Dorota, „Dobry adres to człowiek”
Terakowska Dorota, „Lustro pana Grymsa”
Terakowska Dorota, „Muzeum Rzeczy Nieistniejących”
Terakowska Dorota, „Ono”
395.
396.
397.
398.
399.
400.
401.
402.
403.
404.
405.
406.
407.
408.
409.
410.
411.
412.
413.
414.
415.
416.
417.
418.
419.
420.
421.
422.
423.
424.
425.
426.
427.
428.
429.
430.
431.
432.
433.
434.
435.
436.
437.
438.
439.
137
440.
Terakowska Dorota, „Poczwarka”
Terakowska Dorota, „Samotność Bogów”
Terakowska Dorota, „Tam gdzie spadają Anioły”
Terakowska Dorota, „W krainie Kota”
Terakowska Dorota, „Władca Lewawu”
Terlecki Ryszard, „Profesorzy UJ w aktach SB”
Terlecki Ryszard, „Historia służb specjalnych PRL-u”
Tokarczuk Olga, „Bieguni
Tokarczuk Olga, Dom dzienny, dom nocny”
Tokarczuk Olga, „Gra na wielu bębenkach”
Tokarczuk Olga, „Lalka i perła”
Tokarczuk Olga, „Księgi Jakubowe”
Tokarczuk Olga, „Prawiek i inne czasy”
Tokarczuk Olga, „Prowadź swój pług przez kości umarłych”
Tomaszewska Anna, „Wiersze do czytania”
Tomaszewski Mieczysław, „Fryderyk Chopin i George Sand”
Tymański Tymon, Księżyk Rafał, „Biografia Tymona Tymańskiego”
Twardoch Szczepan, „Drach” (excluding French rights)
Twardoch Szczepan, „Morfina”
Twardoch Szczepan, „Wieczny Grunwald” (excluding French rights)
Twardoch Szczepan, „Wieloryby i ćmy. Dzienniki”
Twardowski Jan, „Abecadło ks. Jana Twardowskiego”
Twardowski Jan, „Autobiografia”, ed. A. Iwanowska
Twardowski Jan, „Elementarz księdza Twardowskiego dla
najmłodszego, średniaka i starszego”,
Ed. A. Iwanowska
Waga Adam, „Chromając”
Waga Adam, „Obol” / Pilot Marian „Postanowienia końcowe”
Waga Adam, „Samosiew”
Walas Teresa, „Zrozumieć swój czas”
Wałęsa Danuta, „Marzenia i tajemnice”
Waniek Henryk, „Sprawa Newtona”
Wencel Wojciech, „Ziemia Święta”
Wilk Paulina, „Znaki szczególne”
Winklowa Barbara, „Wanda i Narcyza”
Wiśniewski Janusz L., „Czy mężczyźni są światu potrzebni”
Wiśniewski Janusz L. „Intymna Teoria Względności”
Wiśniewski Janusz L., „Moja bliskość największa”
Wiśniewski Janusz L., Moje historie prawdziwe”
Wiśniewski Janusz L., „Molekuły emocji”
Wiśniewski Janusz L., „Sceny z życia za ścianą”
Wiśniewski Janusz L., „Ukrwienia”
Włodarczyk Barbara, „Nie ma jednej Rosji”
Włodek Ludwika, „Pra”
Włodek Ludwika, „Wystarczy przejść przez rzekę”
Wołos Mariusz, „O Piłsudskim, Dmowskim i zamachu majowym.
Dyplomacja sowiecka wobec Polski w okresie kryzysu politycznego
1925 – 1926”
Wołos Mariusz, Kornat Marek, „Biografia Becka” (working title)
441.
442.
443.
444.
445.
446.
447.
448.
449.
450.
451.
452.
453.
454.
455.
456.
457.
458.
459.
460.
461.
462.
463.
464.
465.
466.
467.
138
Woydyłło Ewa, „Buty szczęścia”
Woydyłło Ewa, „Dobra pamięć, zła pamięć”
Woydyłło Ewa, „O depresji”
Woydyłło Ewa, „Podnieś głowę”
Woydyłło Ewa, „Szczęśliwe życie”
Woydyłło Ewa, „Z zgodzie ze sobą”
Woźniak Maciej, „Iluzjon”
Woleński Jan, „Granice niewiary”
Wyka Marta, „Autobiografia”
Wyka Kazmierz, „Wśród poetów”
Wysocki Radek, „Human Tuman”
Zając Andrzej, „Elementarz świętego Franciszka dla wszystkich,
którzy mieszkają na całym świecie”
Zaleski Marek, „Zamiast. O twórczości Czesława Miłosza”
Zblewski Zbigniew „Wolność i Niezawisłość”
Zechenter-Spławińska Elżbieta, „Pod gwiaździstym niebem”
Zettinger Piotr, „Nietutejszy”
Ziemny Aleksander, „Późne sonety”
Zimmerer Katarzyna, „Zamordowany świat. Losy Żydów w Krakowie
1939 – 1945”
Zimmerer Katarzyna, Orwid Maria, „Nie wszystko opowiem”
Zoll Andrzej, „Saga rodzinna”
Żabińska Antonina, Borsunio”
Żabińska Antonina, „Dżolly i Ska”
Żabińska Antonina, „Ludzie i zwierzęta”
Żabińska Antonina, „Rysice”
Życiński Józef, „Elementarz księdza Życińskiego dla biskupa
i świeckiego”
Życiński Józef, „Odyseusz czy playboy? Życiowa odyseja człowieka”
Życiński Józef, „Wiara wątpiących”

The London Book Fair 2016

Transcription

Similar documents

A Leading Think-tank in Central and Eastern Europe

Ogniem i mieczem Ogniem i mieczem

Johnny Tremain by Esther Forbes Objectives

Historical Background Briefing Conditions of

Polish American Journal

The Frankfurt Book Fair 2014

Polish Film Festival Flyer 8_5x5_5

by Mazurkas Travel - Mazurkas Travel Poland

Newsletter no. 4 - Kujawska Szkoła Wyższa we Włocławku

11 November – Polish National Independence Day

Musical Department of Kollataj`s Forge of the True Men