The London Book Fair 2012

Transcription

The London Book Fair 2012
Rights
Catalogue
Wydawnictwo
literackie
A
The London Book Fair 2012
Contact Information
S u p e rv i s o ry B o a r d
Chairperson Vera Michalska-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 Anna Zemanek
Foreign rights
Joanna Dąbrowska
e-mail: [email protected]
Paweł Ciemniewski
e-mail: [email protected]
Jolanta Korkuć
e-mail: [email protected]
Legal affairs Agata Wierzchowska
Agata Chabior-Opidowicz
Secretary Beata Krupa
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
e-mail: [email protected]
The London Book Fair 2012
Rights Catalogue
Wydawnictwo Literackie
www.wydawnictwoliterackie.pl
2
Contents
5
About Us
8 Authors List
FICTION
Contemporary fiction
10
11
13
15
16
18
20
22
23
25
26
Franczak Jerzy – The Inhuman Comedy
Franczak Jerzy – Da capo
Janko Anna – The Matchbox Girl
Karpowicz Ignacy – Balladyna and romances
Karpowicz Ignacy – Gestures
Kobza Piotr – Polish Retreat
Miecznicka Magdalena – Fury
Orłoś Kazimierz – The House under the Sign of the Lute
Pilch Jerzy
Pilot Marian – Plume
Pilot Marian – Vim
Women’s fiction
28
39
31
32
34
36
37
38
40
Fox Marta – Zuzanna Doesn’t Exist
Grochola Katarzyna – The Crystal Angel
Grochola Katarzyna – The Flutter of Wings
Grochola Katarzyna – The Green Door
Jeromin-Gałuszka Grażyna – Frederyka
Michalak Katarzyna – Summer in Jagódka
Michalak Katarzyna – A Year in Poziomka
Michalak Katarzyna – Return to Poziomka
Wiśniewski Janusz – Blood Flow
Science fiction & fantasy
3
43
45
47
48
50
51
53
55
56
57
59
61
62
Dukaj Jacek – Black Oceans
Dukaj Jacek – Cathedral
Dukaj Jacek – Extensa
Dukaj Jacek – Ice
Dukaj Jacek – In the Island of the Unbelievers
Dukaj Jacek – Other Songs
Dukaj Jacek – Perfect Imperfection
Dukaj Jacek – The Crowe
Dukaj Jacek – The King of Pain
Dukaj Jacek – The Plunderer’s Daughter
Huberath Marek S. – Vatran Auraio
Orbitowski Łukasz – Holy Wroclaw
Orbitowski Łukasz – It’s Coming
63
Orbitowski Łukasz – Phantoms
65 Protasiuk Michał – Revolution Day
NON-FICTION
History
67
73
77
69
71
75
79
Ćwięk Henryk – Captain Sosnowski
Kaczmarek Ryszard – Poles in the Wermacht
Kaczmarek Ryszard – Poles in the Kaiser’s Army During World War
One
Kopka Bogusław – A Gulag on the Vistula. On Labor Camps in Poland
Pepłoński Andrzej – War for Hidden Causes. In the Second Polish
Republic’s Secret Service, 1918–1945
Petelicki Sławomir, Komar Michał– GROM: Power and Honour
Sowa Andrzej Leon – A Political History of Poland 1944–1991
Biography – Autobiography – Memoirs
81
83
84
86
88
90
92
94
96
99
102
104
106
Baniewicz Elżbieta – Erwin Axer. The Theatre of Words and Thoughts
Głowiński Michał – Autobiography
Grochola Katarzyna, Szelągowska Dorota – Tapestry
Hartwig Julia – Diaries
Komendołowicz Iza – Elka. Recollections about Elżbieta Czyżewska
Kuryluk Ewa – Goldi
Michalska Francesca – All the Joy of Living
Pankiewicz Tadeusz – The Pharmacy in the Krakow Ghetto
Staniszkis Jadwiga, Cieślar Artur – East and West. An Encounter
Stańko Tomasz, Księżyk Rafał – Desperado
Sumińska Dorota – Animal in the Bedroom
Danuta Wałęsa, ed. Piotr Adamowicz – Dreams and Secrets
Włodek Ludwika – A Tale of the Iwaszkiewicz Family
Self-Help
108
109
111
113
112
Grochola Katarzyna, Wiśniewski Andrzej – Marital and Extra-Marital
Fun and Games
Grochola Katarzyna, Wiśniewski Andrzej – Loving Relationships
and Break Ups
Kajdański Edward – Chinese Medicine for Beginners
Sumińska Dorota, Krzywicka Dorota, Stanisławska Irena A. – How to
Live in Harmony with the Bigger and Smaller Members of the
Household
Woydyłło Ewa – How to Live with Depression, but Not in Depression
Poetry
4
115
Ewa Lipska – Echo
117 Matywiecki Piotr – The Audience
119 Mikołajewski Jarosław – Broken Glasses
120
List of Authors available for translation
About us
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
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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
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POLISH PROSE WRITERS
Janusz Anderman, Jacek Dukaj, Jerzy Franczak, Marek S. Huberath,
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, Katarzyna T. Nowak,
Agnieszka Pilaszewska, Janusz L. Wiśniewski, Dorota Terakowska
HISTORIANS
Andrzej Andrusiewicz, Henryk Batowski, Czesław Brzoza, Andrzej Chwalba,
Henryk Ćwięk, Ryszard Kaczmarek, Kazimierz Krajewski, Jan M. Małecki,
Mariusz Markiewicz, Grzegorz Motyka, Andrzej Paczkowski, Artur Patek,
Andrzej Pepłoński, Andrzej Przewoźnik, Jan Rydel, 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
Margaret Atwood, John Banville, John D. Barrow, Walter Benjamin,
Hans Georg Berg, Thomas Bernhard, Jorge Luis Borges, Michael Brooks,
Emanuel Carrere, Rachel Cusk, Kiran Desai, Annie Dillard, Robin Dunbar,
Joel Egloff, T.S. Eliot, Anne Enright, Hans Magnus Enzensbergera,
Oriana Fallaci, Niall Ferguson, George Friedman, Max Frisch, William Golding,
Tim Harford, Venedict Yerofeyev, Hedi Kaddour, Asa Larsson, Doris Lessing,
Primo Levi, Jonathan Littell, Armistead Maupin, Cormac McCarthy,
Alice Munro, Orhan Pamuk, Sylvia Plath, Thomas Pynchon, Atiq Rahimi,
Philippe Segur, Elif Shafak, Ian Stewart, Jurgen Thorvald, Mika Waltari,
Virginia Woolf, Lucy Maud Montgomery
7
Authors list
8
FICTIO N
POE T RY
Janusz Anderman
Margaret Atwood
John Banville
Walter Benjamin
Thomas Bernhard
Jorge Luis Borges
Rachel Cusk
Jacek Dukaj
T.S. Eliot
Hans Magnus Enzensberger
Anne Enright
Max Frisch
Witold Gombrowicz
Katarzyna Grochola
Gustaw Herling-Grudziński
Wieniedikt Jerofiejew
Zbigniew Kruszyński
Stanisław Lem
Doris Lessing
Jonathan Littell
Cormac McCarthy
Magdalena Miecznicka
Lucy Maud Montgomery
Sławomir Mrożek
Alice Munro
Kazimierz Orłoś
Orhan Pamuk
Jerzy Pilch
Sylvia Plath
Thomas Pynchon
Atiq Rahimi
Elif Shafak
Jerzy Sosnowski
Dorota Terakowska
Olga Tokarczuk
Janusz L. Wiśniewski
Virginia Woolf
Stanisław Barańczak
Julia Hartwig
Zbigniew Herbert
Julian Kornhauser
Urszula Kozioł
Ewa Lipska
Piotr Matywiecki
Czesław Miłosz
Halina Poświatowska
Tadeusz Różewicz
Jolanta Stefko
Piotr Szewc
Wisława Szymborska
Jan Sztaudynger
Jan Szuber
Maciej Woźniak
Adam Zagajewski
N ON -F ICT IO N
Władysław Bartoszewski
Zygmunt Bauman
Annie Dillard
Michał Głowiński
Maria Janion
Jerzy Jarniewicz
Pope John Paul II
Ewa Kuryluk
Ryszard Kapuściński
Antoni Kępiński
Zofia Kossak
Primo Levi
Teodor Parnicki
Jan Józef Szczepański
Agata Tuszyńska
FI C T IO N
Jerzy Franczak
One of Poland’s most promising young writers
Winner of many prestigious literary awards
Recipient of scholarships from the Minister
of National Education, the City of Krakow, ‘Polityka’
Weekly, and the Foundation for Polish Education
Jerzy Franczak (b. 1978) — prose-writer, poet, literary scholar and critic,
and academic teacher. The author of novels, short-story collections
and essays, including: Three Histories (2001), Murmurings (2004), Algae,
Calques and Gear Racks (2004), a collection of essays called Gravitations (2007)
and a novel, The Changing Room (2008). He has also written two books
on contemporary literature: On Unreality. Sartre — Gombrowicz —
Nabokov (2002) and In Search of Reality. The World View of Polish Modernist
Prose (2007).
Awards and Distinctions
Winner of the Stanisław Grochowiak Award (1999).
Winner of the Stanisław Czycz Award (2000).
Winner of the Premio Tivoli Award (2001).
Foreign-language translations
Italian, French, German, English, Czech.
Books by the same author published by Wydawnictwo
Literackie
Novels
The Inhuman Comedy (2009)
Da Capo (2010)
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FI C T IO N
Jerzy Franczak
The Inhuman Comedy
Nieludzka komedia
Keynote
Written with spleen, full of black humor, this is an intellectually refined tale
of the horrors of daily life and modern crime.
Sales points
•One of Poland’s most promising young writers.
•Winner of many prestigious literary awards and scholarships.
•Recipient of many scholarships (from the Minister of National Education, the City
of Krakow, ‘Polityka’ Weekly, and the Foundation for Polish Education).
Publication date: 2009
Pages: 168
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Rights sold: Slovenia
Description
The Inhuman Comedy is on the surface a humorous tale, light and breezy,
though somewhat unpleasant. It is being told by one Emil Król, a writer
manqué, a frustrated teacher and an unlucky lover. His stories of his
family, his travels and his work are filled with venomous humor and
bitter irony. By the reader’s smile vanishes from his mouth when this
kind skeptic commits a bestial murder, killing his lover, the mother-to-be
of his child, and then chops up her body… Locked in prison, he describes
his life and eavesdrops on the media furor gathering around his crime.
Without sacrificing a touch of its wit, Franczak’s novel ultimately reveals
its Dantesque dimensions and changes into a meditation on contemporary
evil, both intangible and stripped of its essence.
The Inhuman Comedy is one of the finest examples of ‘young writers’ I’ve
come across lately. Perfection of craft and knowledge of literature are visible on
every page. Franczak’s novel is a sophisticated, erudite game – the very title
contains clear allusions to Dante’s Divine Comedy and Balzac’s Human Comedy
(the former work serves the author in discussing the nature of contemporary
evil, and he skillfully reflects the latter in the satirical way he portrays the misery
of our daily activities) — but this is just the beginning.
Patrycja Pustkowiak, “Dziennik Gazeta Prawna”
Jerzy Franczak is without a doubt one of the most interesting figures among
today’s young Polish writers.
Leszek Bugajski, “Newsweek”
Target market
Lovers of contemporary literature, multi-layered psychological prose,
and novels about our surroundings.
10
FI C T IO N
Jerzy Franczak
Da Capo
Da Capo
Keynote
A young author with a wealth of books and a substantial following,
addressing problems of modern-day youth
Sales points
•A rugged, gritty take on youth culture and corporate indoctrination in trendy Krakow
•Savvy and street-smart, but also a book with a heart, unafraid to tackle difficult family
dynamics
•Franczak has already been translated into several languages, including, English,
German and French
Publication date: 2010
Pages: 256
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Rights sold: Macedonia,
Slovenia
Description
Is De Capo a rollicking adventure in the spirit of Roman Polanski’s Frantic,
replete with a young femme fatale and a man with nothing left to lose?
Is it an unflinching examination of dysfunctional family relationships
(both with one’s parents and with one’s wife/child) and a valiant attempt
to salvage something from them? An inside look at the seedy underbelly
of Krakow’s bars and night life? A lesson in how to get fired from your
corporate office job? Well, it’s all of these things, obviously, as well as
a sequel to Franczak’s previous Wydawnictwo Literackie Publishers success,
The Inhuman Comedy — the new novel’s protagonist is the brother
of the previous one’s. Franczak’s great achievement here is to have not sat
content with writing a gripping novel that young people will identify with.
He has upped the stakes by also making this a novel that takes emotional
risks, and demonstrates a universal comprehension of human interaction
way beyond his years.
Target market
For young people — does a good job addressing itself to those up on
the latest fashions.
11
FI C T IO N
Anna Janko
Anna Janko (born in 1957) is a poet, novelist and a literary critic. She was
shortlisted for the Nike Prize in 2001. She collaborated with a monthly
literary magazine Odra, Programme Two of the Polish Radio, women’s
magazine Pani, she is now a collaborator of Zwierciadło.
She is a member of PEN-Club as well as an Association of Polish Writers.
She hea been awarded numerous prezes for her literary achievemnts,
she has been shortlisted for the Angelus Central European Literary Prize
for her novel The Matchbox Girl.
She is currently working on her second novel.
12
FI C T IO 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.
Sales 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.
Date of publication:
Forthcoming
Pages: 350
Category: Contemporary
Fiction
Rights available: World
Description
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.
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 IO N
Ignacy Karpowicz
A talented Polish writer of the young generation —
a bright hope for Polish prose One of the most
acclaimed debuts of recent years — warmly received
by readers and critics alike
Ignacy Karpowicz was born in 1976. He is a writer (Niehalo, Miracle,
The Emperor’s New Flower), and a translator from English, Spanish
and Amhar. He is a traveler whose destinations have included Central
America and East Africa, and who has lived in Costa Rica and Ethiopia.
Outstanding awards and distinctions
Nomination for the “Polityka” Passport for Niehalo
„Polityka” Passport for Balladyna and Romances
Nomination for the NIKE Award for Gestures
Nominated for the NIKE Award for Balladyna and Romances
Books by the author in the Wydawnictwo Literackie
Publishers catalogue
Novels
Gestures (2008)
Balladyna and Romances (2011)
14
FI C T IO N
Ignacy Karpowicz
Balladyna 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.
Sales 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
Genre: Contemporary fiction
Rights sold: Hungary
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.
15
FI C T IO 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.
Sales 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
Date of publication: 2008
Pages: 258
Category:
Contemporary fiction
Rights sold: Lithuania
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.
16
FI C T IO N
Piotr Kobza
Piotr Kobza (b. 1975) — a specialist in international relations
and the European Union. He has been in the diplomatic service since 2006,
recently in the Polish Embassy in Oslo.
17
FI C T IO N
Piotr Kobza
Polish Retreat
Polskie rekolekcje
Keynote
A fine book with a refined sense of humor that tells of an unconventional
bishop whose every decision is not greeted with open arms…
Sales points
•The brilliant debut by a young political scientist who knows what a taboo is
Description
Date of publication: 2011
Pages: 328
Category:
Contemporary fiction
Rights available: World
A young bishop, a Vatican clerk and man of the world, is brought to parish
in the Eastern wilds of Poland that has been forsaken by both God and man.
Moved by the situation he finds there, he decides to introduce certain
changes, and does so in a way that is quite unconventional for a man
of the cloth. Plenty of amusing incidents result, all in the vein of the classic
comedies. The end, however, justifies the means.
Will the ambitious priest manage to overcome the backwater conservatism
and sluggishness, will he be able to deal with his personal crises?
Target market
Readers of contemporary prose, those wanting to read about the problems
of the Church, or searching for insight into “hermetic environments.”
18
FI C T IO N
Magdalena Miecznicka
Magdalena Miecznicka was born in 1977 – she’s a prose writer
and a publicist. She lives in Warsaw with her husband and two children.
In 2009 her debut novel A Wonrous Career of Magda M was published
by Wydawnictwo Literackie.
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FI C T IO N
Magdalena Miecznicka
Fury
Złość
Keynote
Magdalena Miecznicka’s second book – a stylish and compelling novel
with a backdrop of family and romantic dramas – is modern literature
in the tradition of Western writers: Françoise Sagan, Margaret Atwood,
and Alice Munro.
Sales points
•An intricate novel with both feet planted firmly in the present, Miecznicka’s novel
will appeal to a wide range of readers.
Date of publication: 2012
(not yet published)
Pages: 220
Category:
Contemporary fiction
Rights available: World
Description
Marta is a sharp twenty year old with a bundle of complexes: she reads
the classics, speaks a handful of languages, and has a tendency toward
self-destruction. Raised by her mother, she is unable to forgive her father
for leaving the family for another woman and his career. However,
when Father and his second wife invite her on a luxury vacation on his
yacht, she agrees. Also on the journey is Maja, the niece of her
mother‑in‑law, and her boyfriend Brian. They set off on an idyllic trip around
the bays of the Mediterranean Sea. But nothing here is what it seems:
this superficially innocent journey turns out to be a real lesson in life…
“When I recall that summer, pride is the first thing to emerge from the mental
haze. Pride that I allowed anger overtake me, and pride that it turned me into
someone else. Someone tougher and meaner. An adult. But next come the doubts.”
(A fragment from the book)
Target market
Female readers of all ages, from teenagers to mature women. Readers
of psychological dramas.
Lovers of contemporary prose, good women’s literature, and multi-layered
novels.
20
FI C T IO N
Kazimierz Orłoś
Kazimierz Orłoś (b. 26 December 1935 in Warsaw), pseudonym: Maciej
Jordan – an outstanding Polish writer, film and television scriptwriter,
playwright, author of radio plays, and journalist.
He collaborated with Radio Free Europe, published in Kultura and Plus
magazines. In Poland he was censored. After the fall of the People’s Republic
he collaborated with Solidarność weekly, Gazeta Wyborcza, Rzeczpospolita,
Życie, and Gazeta Polska.
In 1970 he received the Kościelski Foundation Award for Dark Trees.
In 2006 his book of short fiction entitled The Girl from the Porch was honored
with the New Books Award, and a year later, with the Warmia and Mazury
Literary Award.
Polish President Lech Kaczyński presented him with the Commander’s
Cross of the Order of Polonia Restituta on 3 May 2007 for outstanding
service to Polish independence, for working to bring about democratic
transformations, and for his achievements to aid the country in his
professional and social work.
In 2007 he was singled out by the Arts Group of the Polish Radio Theater for
the Honorary Great Splendor Award.
His books have included The Marvelous Hideout (1973), The Third Lie (1980),
The Blue Dragonfly (1996), Wooden Bridges (2001), The Girl from the Porch (2006)
and The House under the Sign of the Lute (2012).
21
FI C T IO N
Kazimierz Orłoś
The House under the Sign of the Lute
Dom pod Lutnią
Keynote
A novel with wide-ranging appeal, by an author who has already earned
a following in generations of Polish readers.
Sales points
• The winner of many prestigious awards
• A triumphant return to form by a writer in the great tradition of Polish realists
Description
A colonel returns from a Prisoner of War camp in the West, and settles down
in a once-German farmstead in a Mazurian village, partly inhabited by others
who have been resettled. Dangers abound: the protagonist fights with poachers,
and is accused of assisting the partisans. His seventeen-year-old grandson
Tomek comes to see him from Warsaw, escorted by his mother, who fears arrest.
Tomek initially does not want to stay, but then when his mother wants to take
him back to the capital city, he desperately protests; he spends over a year with
his grandfather in conditions radically different from those he knew in the
city, and strikes up new friendships. Alongside this fascinating new bond that
is formed between the old man and his grandson, we follow the relationship
between the honest colonel and a young local woman. The atmosphere of this
novel is extraordinary – it is a rare description of Polish post-war reality seen
through the eyes of an intelligent man who is entangled in difficult situations,
but tries to create a sense of order and give his grandson some relative stability.
Date of publication: 2012
Pages: 332
Category:
Contemporary fiction
Rights available: World
A beautiful and finely written book, extremely atmospheric, full of goodness and
warmth, reminding us of the marvels of the world and of life, and full of dramatic
tension, showing us life in the “eye of the hurricane,” and a young boy’s coming of age.
Kazimierz Orłoś’s best novel to date! Remarkable for its description of the experience of
happiness in unhappy times.
Przemysław Czapliński
This is ultimately a novel about an unexpected encounter between an old man
and a young woman, a connection that both find remarkable. It is about how their
lives change, with the touch of a sensitive hand. Was this a great love? I do not know.
I don’t even know if it is still possible to convincingly portray a “great love” in the
twenty-first century.
Kazimierz Orłoś
Target market
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Reader’s of top-shelf prose, historical and romantic novels, lovers of traditional,
realistic prose and recollections of the second half of the 20th century –
the romantic plot will appeal to teenagers, the historical setting to older readers.
FI C T IO N
Jerzy Pilch
Wydawnictwo Literackie represents translation rights to the following titles
by Jerzy Pilch:
23
FI C T IO N
Marian Pilot
Marian Pilot (born 1936) – contemporary writer, journalist and screenwriter.
He has worked in the editorial teams of such publications as “Wiadomości
Filmowe” and “Na Przełaj”. Former prose section editor of “Tygodnik
Kulturalny”.
Awards
The Nike Prize 2011
Books
Na odchodnym (2002)
Cierpki, oboki, nice: bardzo małe opowiadania (2006)
Ciżba: opowiadania i opowieści (1980)
Jednorożec (1978)
Karzeł pierwszy, król tutejszy; Tam, gdzie much nie ma… (1976)
Majdan (1973)
Matecznik (1988)
Opowieści świętojańskie (1966)
Panny szczerbate: opowiadania (1977)
Pantałyk (1989)
Sień (1965)
W słońcu, w deszczu (1981)
Wykidajło (1980)
Zakaz zwałki (1974)
24
FI C T IO N
Marian Pilot
Plume
Pióropusz
Keynote
A bravura novel gathering together all the attributes of Marian Pilot’s
writing: a surrealist sensibility, sense of the grotesque, pictorial
suggestiveness.
Sales points
•The Nike Prize 2011 winner!
Description
Date of publication: 2011
Pages: 320
Category:
Contemporary fiction
Rights sold: Macedonia
A splendid novel by an author acclaimed for his creative linking of the prose
of the “peasant trend” with the Gombrowicz tradition.
The story of the postwar childhood of an obstreperous protagonist coming
from a family of rural “paupers” and thieves. His illiterate father, following
a prank on a teacher, a case of theft and the destruction of a school
blackboard, is shut up – as an enemy of the people – in one of Stalin’s
jails. The boy and his mother seek justice. Paradoxically, the need to
write court applications triggers off veneration in the protagonist for
the word. A symbolic gift from his father – a stolen pen with a golden nib –
determines his further fortunes…
“A novel about the power and curse of writing, faith in the word and
the consequences of being carried away by this faith. One of the most beautiful
novels granted to us in recent years”.
Dariusz Nowacki, “Gazeta Wyborcza”
“The story in Marian Pilot’s novel mixes languages and sniggers like crazy”.
Darek Foks, “Przekrój”
“Plume is imbued with mischievous humour, piercingly sad, optimistic and deeply
tragic, full of ecstasy, aggression and passion, a story told with bravura”.
Marian Pilot
Target market
Lovers of literarily unique and original, unpredictable and inimitable novels,
readers dreaming about getting acquainted with foreign cultures, lands and
customs.
25
FI C T IO N
Marian Pilot
Vim
Pantałyk
Keynote
An unjustly neglected work by a contemporary master.
Sales points
•An early work by this year’s winner of the prestigious NIKE Literary Award.
Great literature with a philosophical bent.
Description
Date of publication: 2012
Pages: 208
Category:
Contemporary fiction
Rights available: World
The mischievous saga of the ancient and wealthy clans of the Duds
and Nowaks, laced with a wicked sense of humor. A tale of the incredible,
chilling adventures of some unfortunates who narrowly avoid the gallows,
and − in search of answers to the fundamental question put before
them: What to do when everything is possible? − set out on an arduous,
bold, and danger-fraught hunt for the legendary Vim, who haunts the
dreams of all those knocked out of the saddle in our century, an intangible
symbol of structure, peace, and happiness. Originally published in 1970,
this collection of short tales has lost none of its fiendish sparkle – nor its
relevance to the times we live in.
Target market
Readers of ambitious contemporary literature.
26
FI C T IO N
Marta Fox
Winner of many prestigious awards and distinctions.
One of the writers most frequently read by young
people. Her best-selling novel Magda.doc appeared
on school reading lists.
Marta Fox — a writer, poet, and essayist, as well as a journalist. She has
won many literary awards. She is a member of the Stanisława Zawiszanka
Literary Award chapter, which singles out the most talented young poets.
She has written over twenty books, including the bestsellers Magda.doc,
Holy Rita of the Impossible and Shrinking Silence. On the Trials of Childhood,
with no Taboos. Her work tackles family and young people’s issues,
she writes boldly and subtly about growing up, and her every book moves
both readers and critics alike.
Fot. Janusz Stobiński
Awards and Distinctions
Two-time winner of the Polish Romance Literature Competition Grand Prix.
Winner of an honorary badge of Merit to Polish Culture.
Winner of a distinction from the Polish Section of the IBBY for the First Love series.
Foreign-language translations
English, Spanish, German
Books by the same author published by Wydawnictwo
Literackie
Novels
The Woman Who Turned to Stone (2009)
Zuzanna Doesn’t Exist (2011)
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FI C T IO N
Marta Fox
Zuzanna Doesn’t Exist
Zuzanna nie istnieje
Keynote
An intimate, seemingly “simple” novel that shows how two people can fall
in love.
Sales points
•The thinking woman’s “chick lit”.
•Before Sunrise for a new generation.
Description
Date of publication: 2011
Pages: 248
Category: Women’s fiction
Rights available: World
A single night can change your heart for good. After Zuzanna accidentally
ends up spending the night with Paweł, neither of them is ever quite the
same again. Both have been suffering from heartbreak – she is a young
widowed painter, he has recently lost his girlfriend and his parents in an
accident. The magic in Zuzanna Doesn’t Exist comes from the characters’
slow realisation that all their expectations have been reversed – after
a “meaningless” one night stand, Paweł recognises that he has fallen in love.
When he returns to find Zuzanna, however, he finds her apartment empty.
A story of how passion turns into love, and how love conquers all, this novel
pulls off a remarkable feat – it allows itself to be outrageously sentimental
without sacrificing a bit of believability or intelligence along the way. It
might just give the old, sullied category of “chick lit” a new name.
Target market
Young women looking for sensitive, intelligent depictions of love and
passion, with characters and language they can truly relate to.
28
FI C T IO 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 July 1957 in Krotoszyn. 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. She is currently working
on her latest novel, The Crystal Angel.
Awards and distinctions
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)
Foreign language translations
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)
Short Story Collections
Authorized for Happines (2004)
Application for Love (2004)
Other
29
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 IO N
Katarzyna Grochola
The Crystal Angel
Kryształowy Anioł
Keynote
Poland’s best-loved (and best selling) author of popular women’s literature.
Sales points
•The latest and thickest book to date by Poland’s pop-lit phenomenon
•Millions of her books have been sold
Description
Publication date: 2009
Pages: 544
Genre: Women’s fiction
Rights available: World
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.
30
FI C T IO 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
Sales points
•Since being launched on the market in May 2008, this book has not left the best-seller
list. Almost 100,000 copies were sold in the book’s first month alone. Almost 200,000
copies sold up to day.
•The most popular drama novel writer in Poland, whose books sell by the millions
•Each of her books is a major best-seller
Publication date: 2008
Pages: 170
Genre: Women’s fiction
Rights sold: Russia, Vietnam
Description
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
31
FI C T IO N
Katarzyna Grochola
The Green Door
Zielone drzwi
Keynote
The most personal and revealing novel yet by Poland’s reigning queen of the
bestsellers.
Sales 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
Date of publication: 2010
Pages: 408
Genre: Women’s fiction
Rights available: World
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
32
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 IO N
Grażyna Jeromin-Gałuszka
Grażyna Jeromin-Gałuszka was born in Sosnowiec. She has won the contest
organized by the Polish Script Agency and the Film weekly magazine.
She co‑owns a bookshop in Radom. Her debut novel – Golden Bats –
has been awarded the first prize in a literary contest „The Colours of Life”.
Her latest novel – Women form the Swamphas sold 10 000 copies.
33
FI C T IO N
Grażyna Jeromin-Gałuszka
Don’t Leave Me
Nie zostawiaj mnie
Keynote
A charming and accessible tale of a friendship that spans generations.
Sales points
• Jeromin-Gałuszka’s first novel sold upwards of 10,000 copies
• Winner of an award for her first novel, and of a screenplay writing award
Description
Date of publication: 2012
(not yet published)
Pages: to come
Category: Women’s Fiction
Rights available: World
Fryderyka is a headstrong old woman who loves to play bridge, and who one
day takes in Małgorzata under her roof.
Małgorzata is a young woman at a turning point in her life, whose whole
existence revolves around her young daughter, and whose life is being
effectively poisoned by Aleksander.
Aleksander is Fryderyka’s nephew, a retired judge whose heart still aches
from the tragic death of a beloved woman.
What links these three seemingly so different people?
Jeromin-Gałuszka’s book is a tale that that the reader takes to heart,
a world that pulls you in until the final page.
Target market
Readers of popular women’s literature.
34
FI C T IO N
Katarzyna Michalak
Katarzyna Michalak (ur. 1969) – writer, author of books for the women’s
prose market. She self-published her first novel in a print run of twenty
copies. Four years later, she has had two books on the Polish nationwide
bestseller lists, and has already written another few books. Her first book,
Poczekajka, was promoted in an unconventional way – with a song
and a music video, financed entirely by the author.
Books by the same author published
by Wydawnictwo Literackie
Novels
Summer in Jagódka (2011)
A Year in Poziomka (2010)
Return to Poziomka (2011)
35
FI C T IO N
Katarzyna Michalak
Summer in Jagódka
Lato w Jagódce
Keynote
A best-selling writer adored by female readers of all ages.
Sales points
•This author’s previous books have hit numerous best-seller lists across the country,
selling upwards of 10,000 copies.
•A highly prolific author with an intimate understanding of her readers’ needs.
Description
Date of publication: 2011
Pages: 284
Category: Women’s fiction
Rights available: World
Katarzyna Michałak’s latest offering is a charming fairy-tale whose action
takes place in modern-day Poland. The protagonist is a girl who turns from
an ugly duckling to a swan – she goes from working in a Carrefour
supermarket to taking part in a beauty pageant in Cyprus. All through these
changes, however, she remembers her one true love – a boy who has been
wrongly accused of committing a crime and incorrectly diagnosed with an
illness.
Summer in Jagódka is a modern-day fairy-tale about love, and about universal
beauty hidden behind a mask of appearances.
Target market
Readers of “chick lit,” readers taking their first steps into literature.
36
FI C T IO N
Katarzyna Michalak
A Year in Poziomka
Rok w Poziomce
Keynote
A best-selling writer adored by female readers of all ages.
Sales points
•The first part of a series (part two – Return to Poziomka – has already been written).
•A writer who has proven her ability to really speak to readers.
Description
Date of publication: 2010
Pages: 312
Category: Women’s fiction
Rights available: World
Ewa is a thirty-something woman who has already lived a full life, as they
say. She has finally decided to take the plunge and to move into the home
of her dreams. But like everything in life, this dream has its price: to earn
enough money for her dream home in the forest, Ewa has to take up work
in a handsome friend’s publishing house. Her job is to find the next big
thing, a sure-fire bestseller. And this is where the adventure begins...
A captivating story of people who find happiness just when they thought it
was too late. It is about a pair of charming protagonists who learn that all
the good you put into the world is paid back with interest. And ultimately,
about how dreams always do come true – if you let them.
Target market
Readers of “chick lit,” readers taking their first steps into literature.
37
FI C T IO N
Katarzyna Michalak
Return to Poziomka
Powrót do Poziomki
Keynote
A book about the Polish Bridget Jones, who learns that it is never clear
what price dreams come at, how much must be paid for love and what will
actually turn out to be precious in life…
Sales points
•Each of her books becomes a bestseller.
•One of the most highly publicised debuts of the last few years.
Description
Date of publication:
Forthcoming
Pages: to come
Category: Women’s fiction
Rights available: World
Katarzyna Michalak, in the sequel to the best-selling A Year in Poziomka,
will take us not only to a beautiful Polish village, to places both familiar
and unknown, but on an exotic voyage to India, while guaranteeing
a multiplicity of thrills, surprising plot twists, powerful emotions, laughter
and tears, and also splendid tales about the animals without which
Poziomka would not be Poziomka. Day by day, month by month, the author
weaves a tale of people who contain genuine, sincere goodness. Yet even
they are not devoid of weaknesses and vices, as they complete difficult
choices, make mistakes and hurt their loved ones. The story holds its charm,
keeping the reader in a state of suspense until the final page. Will it all
end well?…
Target market
Lovers of contemporary popular literature, dramatic novels, psychological
dramas, women’s prose, inspirational books.
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FI C T IO N
Janusz Leon Wiśniewski
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 (born 1954) graduated in economics and physics
from the Copernicus University in Torun. He defended his PhD at the Warsaw
Technical Academy in computer sciences. His post-doctorate was in
chemistry, at the Łódź Technical University. He works in a company
that makes information systems for chemists. He has published: @lone in the
Internet (2001), Tension Units (2002), @lone in the Internet: Triptych (2003),
Recurring Destiny (2004), An Intimate Theory of Relativity (2005), Molecules of
Emotion (2006), Does the World Need Men? (2007), and Scenes from the Other
Side of the Wall (2008)
Foreign language translations
Russia, Croatia, Ukraine, Czech Republic
Books by Janusz L. Wiśniewski on offer
from Wydawnictwo Literackie publishers
Short Story Collections
A Private Relativity Theory (2005)
Molecules of Emotion (2006)
Scenes from the Life through the Wall (2008)
Other
Does the World Need Men? (2007)
Blood Flow (2007)
39
FI C T IO N
Janusz Wiśniewski
Blood Flow
Ukrwienie
Keynote
A collection of thoughts and reflections by one of Poland’s best-selling
authors.
Sales points
•An author whose every book is a sales event.
•Insightful, warm, and a pleasure to read.
Description
Date of publication: 2011
Pages: 110
Category: Women’s fiction
Rights sold: Russia
Poland’s best-loved writer of popular novels and editorials returns
with another collection of newspaper columns to cherish and to enjoy.
Wiśniewski’s light-hearted psychological insights into male-female
relationships and the ways of the world have already won over millions
of readers in Poland and well beyond its borders.
Target market
Readers in search of an accessible bedside read that will leave them with
much food for thought; readers of essays and inventive newspaper columns.
40
FI C T IO N
Jacek Dukaj
The most outstanding writer of fantasy
and science fiction in Poland
Worthy successor to Stanisław Lem
Jacek Dukaj (born 1974) is one of Poland’s most interesting contemporary
prose writers, whose books are always eagerly anticipated events. He is the
author of Black Oceans, Extensa, Other Songs, Perfect Imperfection, Xavras
Wyżryn and Other National Fictions and Ice, and the brains behind the PL +50.
Future Histories anthology. After the huge success of his novel Ice,
which won the European Literary Award, the prestigious Kościelscy Award
and was nominated for the Nike (the most prestigious literary award
in Poland), Jacek Dukaj published widely acclaimed grim fairy tale The Crowe.
Most Important Prizes and Distinctions
Jerzy Żuławski Literary Award for The Crowe (2010)
Mackiewicz Literary Award for The Crowe (2010)
PPNW Prize: Autumn Book 2009 for The Crowe (2010)
European Literary Award for Ice (2009)
Kościelscy Award for Ice (2008)
„Polityka” Prize: Book of the Last Two Decades for Ice (2008)
Kościelscy Award for Ice (2008)
Prize in the Wirtualna Polska (website) public vote: Polish Novel of the Year 2007
for Ice (2008)
Śląkfa Prize: Author of the Year 2007 for Ice (2008)
Sfinks Prize: Polish novel of the Year 2007 for Ice (2008)
PPNW Prize: Autumn Book 2007 for Ice (2008)
Zajdel Prize: Novel of the Year 2004 for Perfect Imperfection(2005)
PPNW Prize: Autumn Book 2003 for Other Songs (2004)
Sfinks Prize: Polish Novel of the Year 2003 for Other Songs (2004)
Zajdel Prize: Novel of the Year 2003 for Other Songs (2004)
Sfinks Prize: Polish Novel of the Year 2001 for Black Oceans (2002)
Zajdel Prize: Novel of the Year 2001 for Black Oceans (2002)
Fantom Prize for In the Land of the Faithless (2001)
Sfinks Prize: Book of the Year 2000 for In the Land of the Faithless (2001)
Śląkfa Prize: Author of the Year 2000 (2001)
Zajdel Prize: Story of the Year 2000 for Cathedral (2001)
Srebrny Glob (Silver Globe) Prize: Story of the Year 1998 for Heart of Darkness (1999)
Sfinks Prize: Polish Story of the Year 1998 for Heart of Darkness (1999)
Books by the author offered by WL
Novels
Extensa (2002)
Other Songs (2003)
Perfect Imperfection (2004)
Ice (2007)
The Plunderer’s Daughter (2002, reprint 2009)
Black Oceans (2001, reprint 2008)
The Crowe (2009)
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Short story collections
Xavras Wyżryn and Other National Fictions (2004, reprint 2009)
In the Land of Unbelievers (2000, reprint 2008)
King of Pain (2010)
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Jacek Dukaj
Black Oceans
Czarne oceany
Keynote
A thinking-man’s science-fiction writer who enjoys massive cross-over
success in Poland
Sales points
•Jacek Dukaj’s much-acclaimed first novel
•A science fiction novel that crosses over to other interest groups
•A dystopic novel in the great tradition of Orwell or Huxley
Description
Publication date: 2010
Pages: 496
Genre: Science fiction & fantasy
Rights available: World
If the blockbuster success of Matrix some years ago proved one thing,
it was that audiences are hungry for a dose of intelligent content with their
mass entertainment, even in a genre as “fluffy” as science fiction tends to
be. In Poland, Jacek Dukaj has been proving just this for many years now,
publishing books of philosophical, yet wildly entertaining science fiction
to mass excitement and critical acclaim, in the grand tradition of Stanislaw
Lem (Solaris). Black Oceans was Dukaj’s first novel, published after he had
already built a firm reputation for his short stories. A sprawling, epic
dystopia that defies summary, this book shows the bankrupt lives of the
financial elite in the United States of 2060, where political correctness has
become a strangling oppression, courses are given in ruthlessness, and the
economic army protects the market from hostile forces. The characters in
the novel are awaiting the Change, which will alter their lives in ways they
cannot dream. As such, everything in this book is darkly fantastic and yet
disturbingly recognizable, a recipe that made 1984 and Brave New World such
runaway successes.
In many parts of this novel the hands simply rise and clap by themselves.
Marek Oramus, “Nowa Fantastyka”
Hard to believe that this novel was written by a 27-year-old. At the same age, Lem
had yet to write his debut, The Astronauts. One shudders to think what Dukaj
will be writing when he’s at the age Lem was when he wrote Solaris or Cyberiada.
Wojciech Orlinski, “Gazeta Wyborcza”
Jacek Dukaj successfully shows a non-linear world, where it’s not change that’s
important, but the mathematical derivative of change – the hastening of
change. A believable world, packed and saturated with details. A world in which
the frequency of appearances of murderous millennial cults and technological
changes in telecommunications affect one another.
Janusz A. Urbanowicz, “Esensja”
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Target market
Fans of top-shelf science-fiction, and lovers of intricately constructed
literature who normally stay far away from the science-fiction shelves.
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Jacek Dukaj
The Cathedral
Katedra
Keynote
A completely unique and delightful parable without a trace of the literal;
it draws in the reader and holds him.
Sales points
•An Oscar-nominated film was made based on Cathedral.
•Recalls the best cosmic achievements of Stanisław Lem.
Publication date: 2009
Pages: 110
Genre: Science fiction & fantasy
Rights sold: Italy
•Cathedral received the Janusz A. Zajdel Polish Fandom Award for best short story
of the year 2000.
Description
The story of Father Lavone, who sets off on a journey to the unique
Nanospore Cathedral in Izmiraida — a beautiful, mysterious and
dangerously fascinating building…
Cathedral brilliantly demonstrates that writing a masterpiece requires not
only technical virtuosity, but above all, real talent.
While the film version of Cathedral is achieving recognition and world fame,
it can be easy to forget that in fact the whole process was driven by the same
incomprehensible, joyful, childlike fascination that makes you pursue your insane
projects well into the evenings, into the nights, your tongue protruding slightly
and your cheeks flushed — and it makes no difference if this is at the easel, over
a manuscript, at a computer, at an original electronic constructor, at a drafting
table or a completely abstract mathematical model — because the beauty is too
great, because it’s captured your heart and mind, because you can’t fend it off.
Tomek Bagiński, Jacek Dukaj
...it doesn’t soothe the watcher, but it is beautiful. It engages not just the sense
of sight, but also sets some deeper processes in motion.
Jacek Dukaj, Cathedral
Without batting an eye, Jacek Dukaj has done what perhaps no western writer
would dare – he starts a theme, extrapolates and describes it, guides his story,
sprinkling it with hundreds of comments and inventive projections that astonish
the reader with their logic, then extracts what he can from the premises he’s set,
turns them upside-down, showing the most important and crucial conclusions
– and ends things there. The presentation of the world is so complete, rich and
thoughtful that nobody could go further on the theme, nothing more could be
drawn from it than what’s been done here first.
Grzegorz Wiśniewski, „Esensja”
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The fascinating thing about Dukaj’s novels is how they show a reform — as if under
the pressure of these cosmic and technologically-altered realities — of our
approach to God and to metaphysical riddles.
Marek Oramus, „Dziennik Polski”
Target market
Lovers of Jacek Dukaj’s work, fans of top-notch fantasy which steps outside
of the genre, people interested in the world, demanding readers in search
of a multi-layered work they can return to time and again.
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Jacek Dukaj
Extensa
Extensa
Keynote
A thinking-man’s science-fiction writer who enjoys massive cross-over
success in Poland
Sales points
•Perhaps Dukaj’s warmest and most accessible book
•Both a parable of existence and an engrossing tale of future life as it has never been
seen before
Description
Publication date: 2010
Pages: 130
Genre: Science fiction & fantasy
Rights sold: Hungary, Italy
This novel by the reigning master of Polish literary science fiction initially
seems uncharacteristic of his works. It is very brief by his standards,
and describes an idyllic community living in the Green Country (formerly
Greenland), grazing their horses in the valley, falling in love etc.
The darkness here emerges slowly, as it does for our young protagonist,
who comes to learn the truth about his surroundings from an old
astronomer he befriends, and gains the ability to live in two spaces at once.
The Green Country is, after all, the last human settlement after some
obscure cataclysm, a place where the living speak with the dead, and where
magic spells are daily fare. The title of the book may allude to a paradox
discovered by Einstein, Rosen and Podolski in 1935, but much of the charm
of this book also comes from its observations on human nature, and its
reflections on death and old age. Though it has earned comparison with
Wyndham’s The Chrysalis, Extensa is in fact a book that resembles nothing
else – nothing except, perhaps, for Jacek Dukaj.
Dukaj has built an extraordinarily tight construction that can be read in two
ways: either with a dictionary of foreign terms, or by taking the author’s word for
it. But then he leaps from these scientific descriptions to the fantastic, pulled from
thrillers of the best kind.
Pawel Dunin-Wasowicz
A tale of loyalty, devotion, and the human desire to live eternally, and in a few
worlds simultaneously.
Dariusz Nowacki
Target market
Fans of top-shelf science-fiction, and lovers of intricately constructed
literature who normally stay far away from the science-fiction shelves.
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Jacek Dukaj
Ice
Lód
Keynote
A XIX Century-style epic story worthy of the XXI Century. Alternative history
in the style of Dostoevsky or Tolstoy laced with a sensational dose of fantasy.
Sales points
•One of the most interesting and skilled Polish prose writers, whose imagination has no
equal, not only in Poland but over the whole world.
•Multi-prize winner.
•Ice is a novel of the kind no longer written, a phenomenon on a world wide scale, even
its appearance in a foreign language has aroused interest.
Publication date: 2008
Pages: 1054
Genre: Science fiction &
fantasy
Rights sold: Macedonia,
Russia, Bulgaria
48
•Awarded European Literary Award!
Description
Ice is a novel unlike any other — “last great novel of 19. century lost in our
times”, as critics say.
This epic tale takes us back to belle epoque — from dark brickhouses
of proletarian Warsaw to the luxury of Trans-Siberian Express, from crystal
ballrooms of sky-high palace of Siberia’s Governor General to the factories
and mansions of new Polish bourgeoisie.
Great attention to historical details and stylization of language are
nevertheless mere ornaments to much more ambitious literary project:
the recreation of “the spirit of the age”, Zeitgeist of Europe as it was before
the First World War.
Even the psychological plays between main characters of Ice are shown
according to 19-century views of human nature. But all this gives just
a background for book’s main theme. Ice begins in year 1924 in Warsaw,
which is still under the rule of the Russian Empire, tsar Nicholas II Romanov
has no reason to fear Revolution; snow and ice cover the city in the middle
of summer and glacial monuments walk the streets. “It has frozen”,
say Russians in Ice: weather, economy, politics, history itself — everything
has been stopped by single phenomenon: the Tunguska meteoroid.
Dukaj’s version of the 1908 incident brings to Earth a new mineral,
tungetite: as electromagnetic machines made possible the experiments
and evolution of 20-century science and technology, so machines
of electrotungetite open door to “black physics”: discovery and manipulation
of fundamental force changing the laws of logic. Benedykt Gierosławski,
young Polish mathematician, is called by tsar’s Ministry of Winter to travel
to Siberia and lands of Frost. In his voyage and in Irkutsk he meets many
historical and fictional powerful figures (Nicola Tesla, Józef Piłsudski,
Grigori Rasputin among others). He’s caught in a vast web of political,
economic and religious conspiracies, intrigues of love and crime, forced
to fight and take sides.
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And Benedykt is so important because of his father, political exile
and Polish revolutionist: “Father Frost”, a man who allegedly can influence
the spreading of Ice, in this way shaping the logic map of world and,
consequently, the course of history. For there arises another great question:
about history as a force of nature, limited and directed by certain rules
inferable from empirical data.
Ice is a historical novel, a psychological novel and a science fiction novel —
where “science” stands for 19-century philosophy of history.
Target market
Fans of fantasy written with verve and an attachment to the detail
encountered in novels and alternative histories, fans of books describing
the world (particularly East Europe and Asia) from a surprising and revealing
perspective but above all readers craving sensationally written books
that keep them in suspense from the first to the last page and which can be
returned to again and again.
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Jacek Dukaj
In the Land of Unbelievers
W kraju niewiernych
Keynote
A kaleidoscope of Jacek Dukaj’s fantastical visions in one volume, including
the legendary, Oscar nominated, Cathedral…
Sales points
•One of the most interesting and skilled Polish prose writers, whose imagination has no
equal, not only in Poland but over the whole world.
•Multi-prize winner
•Includes Cathedral — the story that inspired Polish artist Tomasz Bagiński to make
a short animated film that received an Oscar nomination
Publication date: 2008
Pages: 532
Genre: Science fiction & fantasy
Rights available: World
Description
This generous volume of short stories demonstrates the author’s
extraordinary talent, flair for vision and technique, and includes
Cathedral — the story that inspired Polish artist Tomasz Bagiński to make
a short animated film that received an Oscar nomination. But this is not
the only pearl in the collection: fantasy lovers will also find Irreehaare,
a precursor to the Matrix phenomenon, and the controversial Land of Christ.
Jacek Dukaj’s prose is a true intellectual and artistic feast, inspiring
the imagination and reinvigorating our fossilised ways of looking at reality.
The most fascinating thing in Dukaj’s works is the way he shows how our
approach to God or metaphysical riddles changes under the pressure of cosmic,
technologically-altered circumstances. In Dukaj we see how a new, man-made
reality deforms and transforms its creator, causing him problems, pain and
quandaries unknown to us today. Dukaj treats his worlds as visions of the future
that might come true someday, somewhere. I find the opposite title more suitable
in this case: “In the Land of the Faithful”. Both for the subject of religion as Dukaj
understands it, and in his approach to science fiction.
Marek Oramus, “Dziennik Polski”
Dukaj is a writer gifted with an incredible talent for inventing fantastic worlds
(...) he can come up with an extraordinarily rich image of the world for just
a short story (“The General’s Move”, “Land of Christ”), after which he carelessly
shucks this world off and sets out to create another, as if the goal of his writing
were to empirically disprove the thesis that everything has already been done
in fantasy writing, and that nothing new can be invented.
Wojciech Orliński, “Gazeta Wyborcza”
Target market
Admirers of fantasy looking for world class writers whose visions of our
and parallel worlds take the breath away. Those devoted to prose that forces
them to redefine their own outlook on reality.
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Jacek Dukaj
Other Songs
Inne pieśni
Keynote
Care to see how the world would look if Aristotle had been right, and
not Democritus? If we were surrounded by the four elements, and not by
a swarm of atoms? How would society look, or wars, or travel to the moon?
In Other Songs Dukaj has written the unwriteable and created great literature.
Sales points
•One of the most interesting and skilled Polish prose writers, whose imagination has no
equal, neither in Poland nor across the whole world.
•Multiple prize winner.
Publication date: 2009
Pages: 630
Genre: Science fiction & fantasy
Rights sold: Russia
•Honored by the prestigious Janusz A. Zajdel Award, the SFinks and a nomination
for the “Polityka” Passport.
Description
Hieronim Berbelek was once a great strategist. During wartime, however, he
was crushed by the enemy’s Form, which almost stripped him of his identity
and his will to live. Perhaps he’ll get it back when he makes contact with his
children he hasn’t seen for years, on a trip to Africa — a land of golden cities
and shapeless beasts, to the heart of the Dark Continent, where terrifying
beauty and monstrous miracles are born...
Other Songs can be read in many fashions: as an adventure, fantasy,
or science‑fiction novel, or as a philosophical treatise. In any case,
this is a superb and compelling read, in which the author and the reader
are hunting together for an answer to a question: Is the other knowable?
Or can you only impose your own form on the unknown by force —
or submit and become altered yourself?
Apparently this is his writing technique — first he imagines an extraordinary
scenario, and then writes it as if condensing a film screened inside his head.
If this is true, then this film has eclipsed all previous ones with its special effects
— we have here, for example, the dreamlike description of Alexandria and its
library, a city lifting itself over the Mediterranean Sea, air ships and interplanetary
ones, moon colonies, Moscow under the rule of a dark prince, palaces, fortresses
and battlefields, all described most tangibly, and sticking deep in your memory.
Wojciech Orliński, „Gazeta Wyborcza”
Other Songs is a fantasy novel (...), a tribute to complex 19th-century adventure
literature, full of African exotica and the tropics, and also a philosophical parable.
Mariusz Czubaj, „Polityka”
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Other Songs carries a load of extraordinary landscapes, places that are known
to us, but transformed according to Aristotelian philosophy and historical events
which Dukaj has created for the purposes of the novel. Each of these visions
is original, incredible, and simultaneously exquisitely depicted. This is prose you
can see.
Eryk Remiezowicz, „Esensja”
Target market
Lovers of Jacek Dukaj’s work, fans of top-notch fantasy, which steps outside
of the genre, people interested in the world, demanding readers in search
of a multi-layered work they can return to time and again.
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Jacek Dukaj
Perfect Imperfection
Perfekcyjna niedoskonałość
Keynote
A masterstroke — a classic of the genre, bringing to mind the work
of the greatest hard science-fiction literature writers, such as Greg Egan,
Isaac Asimov or Dan Simmons.
Sales points
•One of the most interesting and skilled Polish prose writers, whose imagination has no
equal, neither in Poland nor across the whole world.
•The novel received the Janusz A. Zajdel Award for 2004.
Publication date: 2009
Pages: 450
Genre: Science fiction & fantasy
Rights available: World
•An ambitious and incredibly original novel, which lifts the science fiction genre into
a whole new dimension.
Description
The first volume of Jacek Dukaj’s trilogy about transcending humanity,
manipulating biology and culture, time, space and even physics.
It is the 29th century. Adam Zamoyski, a mysteriously resurrected astronaut,
is stuck in the middle of civilizations, between people, non-people,
and post-human creatures. Competition drives evolution forward — plants,
animals, people, cultures and economies compete with one another.
He who best makes use of the natural environment, the planetary resources,
and finally, the laws of physics, will triumph.
Zamoyski has no idea how he has found himself in a world a few hundred
years after his own time — he has problems with his memory and his
identity — but this clearly is the key to winning in this evolution. Who is he
really? And who are these people surrounding him? What mystery did Narva
conceal when Adam’s ship crashed on the rocks?
A book that makes you want to immediately start all over again from the
beginning once you’ve turned the last page. And then one more time.
Dukaj calls worlds into existence like a demiurge, giving them full civilizations.
He invents educational systems, family relationships, fashion, even languages.
Above all, however, he shows the effects of the genetic perfection of mankind
— the new social hierarchy and the new gender difficulties. The book reads
brilliantly in these respects — the further you go the better it gets. Who knows,
maybe this will become a cult novel?
Przemysław Czapliński
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Jacek Dukaj puts a real challenge before readers. This diabolical amalgam
is seemingly impossible — physics from the future and Gombrowicz’s thought;
it’s like a journey through the acid test of a literary purgatory. Probably you’ll
want to make a return trip.
Michał Olszewski, writer
It is my conviction that we’ve been given a real treasure.
Dariusz Cichocki
Bravura action, a marriage of concepts from the hard and natural sciences,
philosophy, metaphysical and religious strands, scientific dissertations,
intellectual messages...
Grzegorz Rogaczewski, „Esencja”
Target market
Lovers of Jacek Dukaj’s work, fans of top-notch fantasy which steps outside
of the genre, people interested in the world, demanding readers in search
of a multi-layered work they can return to time and again.
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Jacek Dukaj
The Crowe
Wroniec
Keynote
Jacek Dukaj’s latest book – a compelling fairy tale like the world has never
seen!
Sales points
•One of Poland’s most skillful and compelling prose writers, whose imagination has no
equal in Poland or across the world.
•Multiple prize-winner.
•A gorgeously illustrated fairy tale of one of the darkest and most pivotal periods in
Polish history.
Publication date: 2009
Pages: 248
Science fiction & fantasy
Rights available: World
Description
The Crowe is a magical tale of the events of a December night in 1981,
and the realities of Martial Law in Poland.
Once upon a time there was a little boy named Adam. In those days there
were no computers, nor was there Internet. The black-and-white televisions
showed two channels. Ugly men appeared on the screen, jabbering about
boring things. American films didn’t make it to the cinemas. There was no
listening to music on iPods and mobile phones. There were no mobile phones.
And one Sunday – there were no morning cartoons. The Crowe had
come through the window during the night, and life had turned into
a nightmarish fairy tale...
Little Adam loses his parents, who are kidnapped by the menacing
Crowe. Watched over and helped by kind people, the boy has to grapple
with a ruthless and violent world to save his beloved family. In his
journey through the bleak, winter city, full of phantom figures (frightened
inhabitants who dissolve into the gray murk, and brutal bandits, informers
and servants of the titular Crowe lurking in wait at every step) our small
protagonist can only count on the power of his child’s imagination and the
assistance of a noble adult helper: Mr. Mortar, a man gifted with remarkable
strength.
Adam and Mr. Mortar wander through a city of cannibalistic GAS, Merrymen,
Double Agents and lying Screecher-Snitchers, Spiky Spooks and steel
Hounds, a MOMO Merrymen with Batons, a giant Zompor, and crows, black
crows against a gray sky and dirty snow.
Target market
Literature enthusiasts looking for world class writers whose visions of
parallel worlds and our own take the breath away. Those devoted to prose
that forces them to redefine their own outlook on reality.
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Jacek Dukaj
The King of Pain
Król Bólu
Keynote
The latest book by Poland’s reigning king of philosophical science-fiction.
Description
Publication date: 2010
Pages: 826
Genre: Science fiction & fantasy
Rights available: World
How close can you get to another person? Into his head? Into his thoughts?
Can you learn his emotions? Never. The body is just a detail; whether
it’s this or that one hardly makes a difference. But shame of one’s body,
the barrier of nakedness — whether physical or psychological, the barrier
of embarrassment, the fear of revealing oneself, of letting down the mask —
separates a conventional situation from an intimate one. The pain that we
sometimes call shame, sometimes betrayal, sometimes humiliation, this pain
is not a prison to be broken out of at all costs – it is the first condition
of intimacy.
Jacek Dukaj’s new volume of short stories is very diverse, and one that
shows the finest qualities of the author’s work – a wealth of fictional
inventiveness, creative flair, and astonishingly innovative form. This is a real
occasion for lovers of his work, as well as for those who are only setting off
on their adventure with his books. King of Pain is sure to be a compelling
read.
Target market
Fans of top-shelf science-fiction, and lovers of intricately constructed
literature who normally stay far away from the science-fiction shelves.
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Jacek Dukaj
The Plunderer’s Daughter
Córka łupieżcy
Keynote
It’s all been done — now archaeology is the queen of sciences.
About the book
Publication date: 2009
Pages: 138
Genre: Science fiction & fantasy
Rights sold: Hungary
57
On her eighteenth birthday, Zuzanna Klajn receives the key to the mysteries
behind her dead archaeologist father, and finds the City: the reflection of all
cities ever built, by humans and others, in this universe and ones previous,
a treasure trove of all knowledge and a battlefield between Superpowers.
What secrets of the City did Zuzanna’s father uncover? Can we inhabit
the houses of gods and remain people? Which world does Zuzanna herself
belong to, as a child of the City?
A black-bearded fat man with a little girl on his shoulders — they walked down
these avenues and he showed her, uncomprehending, inhuman statues and
hermetic houses, forbidden texts, invisible paintings, the terrible landscapes
of the universe.
Welcome to a walk down the streets of infinity — to a pre-infinity city
of mysteries.
With eyes wide open and jaws hanging ajar, across from three suns, five moons,
purple plains, icy cemeteries, the smoke of volcanoes, black daybreaks — and
those nameless ancient metropolises toward which the city forever sloped.
FI C T IO N
Marek S. Huberath
Marek S. Huberath pen name (b. 1954) made his debut as a SciFi author
in 1987 with the short story Wróciłeś Sneogg, wiedziałam… (You is back,
Sneogg, I knew it…), which won the first prize in the Fantastyka perodical
competition. He is the author of the novels: Gniazdo Światów (The Nest
of the Worlds), Druga podobizna w alabastrze (Another Effigy in Alabaster),
Ostatni, którzy wyszli z raju (The Last to Leave Paradise), Miasta pod skałą
(The Cities Under the Rock), Balsam długiego pożegnania (The Balm of a Long
Farewell) and short stories. He has won numerous awards, including three
Janusz A. Zajdel awards and the Śląkfa award. His books come out very
rarely to the effect that every new one generates a highly emotional
response from both readers and critics. He works and lives in Krakow.
A physicist by profession, he does research on biological systems.
A passionate lover of third-rate horror movies and insects.
Huberath’s works have been translated into English, Russian, and Czech.
The short story Kara większa (The Major Penalty) appeared in English
in The Dedalus Book of Polish Fantasy, Dedalus/Hippocrene, 1996,
while its Czech version (Vysoky trest), translated by P. Weigel, was included
in an anthology published by Laser Books, 2003.
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Marek S. Huberath
Vatran Auraio
Vatran Auraio
Keynote
Another immensely talented and popular Polish writer of literary sciencefiction, in the great tradition of Stanisław Lem (Solaris).
Sales points
•An established name in Polish literary fantastic novels, who keeps getting better and
better with each book.
•A writer with a true ‘cult’ following.
Description
Date of publication: 2011
Pages: 520
Category:
Science fiction & fantasy
Rights available: World
Marek S. Huberath is a university biology professor by day, and by night he
gives vent to all the fascinating daydreams that fill his head. His hotlyawaited new book, Vatran Auraio, takes place on another planet, giving the
biologist plenty of opportunities to invent new and outlandish species of
plant and animal life. But the main focus of this fantastical novel is the
people, and what has become of them. Our protagonist’s job is to wander
about spreading knowledge of the old customs and heritage to a world in
utter regression; where everything of value is being forgotten, diseases are
lethal and utterly rampant, and the immediate result of copulation is the
inevitable death of both partners. Bleak, terrifying, and more than a little
familiar, Vatran offers more proof of the strength of Huberath’s imagination,
and reinforces his position as one of Poland’s leading writers of the thinking
man’s science-fiction novel.
Marek S. Huberath, one of the finest writers in the history of Polish fantastical
novels, has combined science fiction with a treatise on death and decay in his
latest work, Vatran Auraio. The effect is astonishing.
Jakub Demiańczuk, “Dziennik Gazeta”
Huberath is one of the most original Polish writers of fantastical novels. [...] He
has created a visual metaphor of a people who less and less understand the
processes they are helping to create
“Dziennik Elblaski”
Vatran Auraio is thus chiefly a novel about the tragedy of forgetting. It is
beautiful and very sad, and asks us questions that we never thought even existed.
Paweł Dunin-Wąsowicz, “Lampa”
Target market
59
Readers looking for entirely new directions in science-fiction and fantastical
literature; readers who normally never touch these genres, but who
appreciate intelligent and sometimes philosophical reflection on the bigger
issues.
FI C T IO N
Łukasz Orbitowski
One of Poland’s most popular fantasy writers
Considered Poland’s answer to Stephen King
Łukasz Orbitowski (born 1977) is by education a philosopher, and by
fondness a bodybuilder, who has cut his teeth on the fantasy, avant-garde
and realist writers. He writes a dense prose with protagonists standing up
against the challenges of both this world and the next. Representing the
serio-comic movement in Polish literature, he has developed a dashing,
unpretentious and original style. He’s unafraid to experiment, and writes
in blood, sweat and vodka. He is one of Poland’s few horror writers. His
books include short stories (the collections Bad Coastlines, 1999, Paint
Everything Deep and Wide, 2002, and The Dogs of Christmas Eve, 2005), novels
(Horror show, 2006, I’m Losing Warmth, 2007, The Dog and the Priest: Against
Everything, 2007). He also writes journalism and editorials, edits, and
reviews books and films. He is a happy father, and the owner of two cats.
He lives in Krakow, and attended elementary school in Krakow’s Kaziemierz,
where the action of his most well-known book — I’m Losing Warmth —
takes place. He is now working on his latest novel, Holy Wrocław.
Awards and distinctions
Nautilus Award for Horror show;
Krakow Book of the Month Award for I’m Losing Warmth
Books by the author in the Wydawnictwo literackie
Publishers catalogue:
Novels
I’m Losing Warmth (2006)
Holy Wrocław (2009)
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FI C T IO N
Łukasz Orbitowski
Holy Wrocław
Święty Wrocław
Keynote
A horror ballad about a country of prophets, pilgrims and madmen, of a city
of first loves, of a spring of nine miracles, of approaching catastrophe,
written with a skill worthy of Stephen King.
Sales points
•Another book from the Polish master of fantasy and horror
•Extremely favorable reviews from critics and readers alike
Description
Date of publication: 2009
Pages: 296
Category: Science fiction &
fantasy
Rights available: World
This time the action takes place in apartment blocks, where neither devils
nor spirits reside, but rather a second settlement. The haunted residents
abandon their lives to demolish their own homes — under a huge tile there
lies a hot, black surface. More and more people come to this remarkable
settlement with each passing day, the gawpers, believers and researchers
multiply, madness takes hold of the administration and the media…
I don’t want to give away the story, because in Holy Wrocław — apart from the
unsettling atmosphere, the vivid images and the believable characters —suspense
and intrigue are very important, with their dose of black humor.
Adrian Chorębała, “Machina”
Nothing in an Orbitowski horror is taken for granted. There are no cheap tricks
familiar from novels of this sort, no gratuitous blood and guts fly. Orbisowski has
created the terrifying with a skill worthy of the master of the genre, Stephen King.
And as with the American master, every scene leads us one step closer to
catastrophe.
Agnieszka Kolodyńska, “Gazeta Wyborcza Wrocław”
Target market
Lovers of horror, thrillers, fantasy, and books full of suspense.
61
FI C T IO N
Łukasz Orbitowski
It’s Coming
Nadchodzi
Sales points
•Wildly imaginative explorations of the darker side of reality
•A crossover writer who will appeal to both fans of the horror genre and those who
normally keep their distance from it
Description
Łukasz Orbitowski prefers to write about the daytime. This is just one small
way in which his work departs from the cliches we expect from horror
writing, a genre much maligned by “serious” readers. Orbitowski is wise
enough to know that horror is most compelling in carefully measured doses
– and has clearly read enough Edgar Allen Poe to know what the genre is
capable of doing. The key to these short stories is their careful balance
between reality and the fantastic. The hospital that cures souls instead of
bodies could very well be the crazed hallucination of a woman undergoing
a traumatic pregnancy. A home where many infamies are committed might
be literally pursuing an old man, or it may be a metaphor for the
inescapability of the past. Orbitowski is clever enough to leave these
ambiguities unresolved in his fictions, which is why they are much more
than a guilty pleasure, and are avidly read by people who normally keep
a safe distance from “genre fiction.” Ultimately, the most disturbing part
about these tales of the fantastic is that they remind us very much of the
world we know and live in.
Date of publication: 2010
Pages: 404
Category: Short stories
Rights available: World
Reading Orbitowski’s latest collection of short stories, I wondered what was really
so compelling here (because it is compelling). The allure of the plots? The sureness
of the author’s literary craft? All this and more.
Robert Ostaszewski, “Gazeta Wyborcza”
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FI C T IO N
Łukasz Orbitowski
Phantoms
Widma
Keynote
History, gore, science fiction, literary fireworks and conspiracy theories,
Orbitowski’s Phantoms is a tour de force that imagines an entirely different
post-war history for Poland.
Sales points
• An author with a strong following among philosophical sci-fi/horror enthusiasts in Poland,
with major crossover potential
• Nominee for the Zajdel Award for literature of the fantastic
Description
Date of publication: 2012
Pages: 620
Category: Science fiction
& fantasy
Rights available: World
Can science fiction that imagines an alternate history also be high literature?
Łukasz Orbitowski votes yes, and in this, his most accomplished novel
to date, he makes a compelling case for it. Here the Warsaw Uprising is
imagined with an entirely different conclusion, without a shot being fired.
A famous young poet who perished during the Uprising, Krzysztof Kamil
Baczyński, becomes the protagonist of our imaginary history – he is forced
to grapple with the Russian occupation, and writes a novel in the Social Realist
vein. The novel has three major sub-plots – a mystical one, involving a box
with the power to change the course of history, the story of the protagonists,
who were meant to have died in the Uprising, and the story of Wiktor,
a militiaman who was once a loyal friend of the people who almost participated
in the uprising. Will the country be saved this time around? Ten novels into his
literary career, Orbitowski is in top form.
Target market
Readers of fantasy, literature detailing alternate histories, and conspiracy theory
novels.
63
FI C T IO N
Michał Protasiuk
Michał Protasiuk was born in 1978 in Bydgoszcz, but now he lives and works
in Poznań. He does his everyday work as a research marketer and reads such
authors as Dostoyevski and Pynchon with equal fascination. He is inspired
by the transformations of the contemporary world, alternative rock music,
and travels to the former Soviet Republics.
64
FI C T IO N
Michał Protasiuk
Revolution Day
Święto rewolucji
Keynote
Marketing forces, the power of information, murder and love in the big
corporations – a brilliant thriller recalling the film Inception and the best
work of William Gibson.
Sales points
•Winner of the Jerzy Żuławski Literary Award
•Recalls Inception and the best work of William Gibson
Description
Date of publication: 2011
Pages: 476
Category: Science fiction &
fantasy
Rights available: World
Marcin is an analyst who develops marketing strategies that give him
insight into the desires of all the world’s consumers. Agnieszka is a student,
once a hoodlum whose housing estate was once visited by the Messiah.
Dorota would be an ordinary girl, if it weren’t for the fact that someone has
just written a book that is controlling her life. Marek, in turn, is a manager
who has taken part in an experiment meant to prove that life is eternal.
This foursome of young Poles are tossed into a world of global conspiracies
and fascinating riddles, to grapple with the questions: Is history ruled
by mathematical laws? What links a Polish 19th-century mathematician
with a book that has changed the reality of the 21st century? What mystery
lurks within the Poznań Settlement of the Excluded? Will the revolution take
place?
“The basic attraction of Revolution Day comes from its sensational plot.
The author’s inventiveness is also impressive. We are dealing with a book that
is coming true all around the reader: scientific evidence of the afterlife through
cryptography, statistical dream maps etc. And there is a third level, a more subtle
and affecting one, which also happens to be deeper: after we finish reading
we ourselves look at the world as a game of hyper-capitalists, marketing trends,
and subterranean mathematical structures. This is the nightmare of Revolution
Day’s protagonist: he can’t tell product brands apart.”
Jacek Dukaj
Target market
Those who love thrillers, action novels, and fantasy, who are interested
in the contemporary world, globalization, and marketing.
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NO N - F I C T IO N
Henryk Ćwięk
Henryk Ćwięk is a professor of Political Science at the Długosz Academy
in Częstochowa. He has written several books on the inter-war period
in Polish-German-Russian history, including a small previous publication
on Captain Sosnowski.
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NO N - F I C T IO N
Henryk Ćwięk
Captain Sosnowski
Rotmistrz Sosnowski
Keynote
The untold story of Poland’s answer to James Bond.
Sales points
•A true story with more thrilling twists and turns than the most well-crafted novel.
•The tale of a forgotten historical figure whose life remains shrouded in a veil of
mystery.
Description
Who really was Jerzy Sosnowski? He was most certainly a promising future
captain of the Polish cavalry, born into an extremely affluent noble family.
We know for certain that his career was derailed by a scandalous affair with
the fiancée of a head officer. It is established that he moved to Berlin, still
before Hitler’s rise to power, to work as a secret agent. And it is also known
that he was so irresistible to women that many of those whom he seduced
came to actually assist him in his spy work. We are also informed that he
was apprehended by the Germans after Hitler seized control of the
government, that two of the women helping him were beheaded, and that
Poland eventually exchanged him for some German spies in 1936. Now,
however, the questions begin: Did he in fact return to Poland as a German
double-agent? Was he wrongfully imprisoned for fifteen years? What really
happened to him after that? And to return to our original question – who
really was Jerzy Sosnowski? Ćwięk has written a rollicking, entertaining and
profoundly informative book about one of Poland’s most enigmatic figures
from between the two world wars.
Date of publication: 2010
Pages: 296
Category: History
Rights available: World
This is a figure who is somewhat forgotten – and it’s a shame, because he worked
with real bravura, in an unconventional way, and very effectively. The life of the
protagonist of Henryk Ćwięk’s book could serve as the canvas for a splendid spy
thriller movie.
Echo Katolickie
Target market
Readers of thrillers, spy novels, history books (especially pertaining to World
War II and inter-war Berlin); those interested in discovering a particularly
colourful new biography.
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Ryszard Kaczmarek
Ryszard Kaczmarek (b. 1959) – a historian and humanities professor
who researches the history of World War Two in lands incorporated into
the Third Reich, and the history of Upper Silesia in the 19th/20th centuries.
He has written several books, including Under the Rule of the Gauleiters.
The Elite and Instances of Power in the Katowice Regierungsbezirk, 1939–1945,
Upper Silesia during World War Two, and Poles in the Wehrmacht (published
by WL).
Other books for WL
Poles in the Wehrmacht (2011)
Poles in the Keiser’s Army During World War One (2012)
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NO N - F I C T IO N
Ryszard Kaczmarek
Poles in the Wehrmacht
Polacy w Wermachcie
Keynote
An unflinching and groundbreaking look at the Polish participation in Nazi
German armies and the moral quandaries it involved.
Sales points
•A subject which has long been awaiting such thorough treatment
•A sober and humane treatment of a subject that still rouses much emotion both
in Poland and abroad
•Richly supplied with photographs and source materials
Description
Date of publication: 2011
Pages: 448
Category: History
Rights available: World
There are books one reads because they are important, and others one reads
because they are so compellingly written. Poles in the Wehrmacht will be read
for both reasons. Based in part on newly-discovered archival materials,
Professor Ryszard Kaczmarek’s (of Silesian University) book reveals
the uncomfortable fact that as many as half a million Poles were recruited
for the Nazi army during World War II, mainly from the regions of Silesia
and Pomerania, with their large volksdeutsche populations. Far from settling
for blanket accusations of treachery, Professor Kaczmarek delves into their
motivations, and finds everything from a sense of family responsibility
(potential soldiers’ families were threatened with deportation
to concentration camps if their son did not support the Reich) to Wanderlust
(the author finds soldiers’ letters from France, Italy, or Greece filled
with pastoral descriptions of wine, sun, and women). Again and again,
Kaczmarek stresses – and convincingly proves – that the ethical motivations
and responses of Poles in the Wehrmacht were as various as there are
personalities in Poland. In other words, this is a history book that seeks less
to generalize than to show the almost unbelievable complexity
of a phenomenon that often evokes one-dimensional emotions. And this is
ultimately the great value of Poles in the Wehrmacht – whatever our stance
towards the issue when we begin reading the book, we are sure to find it
complicated, problematized, and perhaps ultimately shattered by the book’s
end.
In the People’s Republic-era Poland this history was passed over in silence,
and moreover, now we have access to sources that were previously unknown.
This publication [...] makes an essential contribution to our knowledge on the
subject.
Andrzej Kaczorowski, “Wiedza i zycie”
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NO N - F I C T IO N
The detailed research [in this book] has given birth to a tale that delves into
a topic as unpopular as it is controversial. After all, the image we had created
after the war was one-dimensional, clearly saying that Poles refused all
collaboration with the occupants. But the truth turns out to be far more cruel and
shameful – some of our countrymen were posed with difficult decisions, and were
often forced to devote themselves to the Third Reich. There are still Poles living
today for whom this history is a nightmare to recall, or a shameful secret.
“Echo katolickie”
After 1989 much was written about our countrymen in the Wehrmacht. But now
we have a real hit on our hands. Professor Ryszard Kaczmarek’s Poles in the
Wehrmacht stands to become a bestseller. This is a solidly documented, brilliantly
written work that pulls you in from the first page till the last.
Rafał Geremek, “Newsweek”
Target market
Readers interested in challenging their own perspectives on history, those
interested in World War II and the moral conflicts involved, those in search
of books that handle taboo subjects in a graceful manner.
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NO N - F I C T IO N
Ryszard Kaczmarek
Poles in the Kaiser’s Army
during World War One
Polacy w armii Kajzera podczas I wojny światowej
Keynote
The fates of Polish soldiers written into a scene where the Great War is being
waged: into mighty military operations and army mobilizations.
Sales points
•A book by a respected historian
Description
Date of publication: 2012
(not yet published)
Pages: to come
Category: History
Rights available: World
The history of Polish soldiers who fought in the ranks of the Prussian army
during World War One, in divisions that stretched from Pomeranian Gdańsk
through Greater Poland to Upper Silesia. Their tale has a tragic dimension –
for Poles, belonging to the conscription army necessitated fighting their own
countrymen.
Using a very wide range of materials, including memoirs, Kaczmarek
also presents – as in Poles in the Wehrmacht – the individual fates of people
who were, over time, to co-create the Polish army, the foundation
of independence.
No one before has told this story of thousands of Poles in Prussian uniform.
The hundred-year anniversary of the First World War seems an apt time
to do this.
This publication is illustrated, and includes appendices and maps.
Target market
Those interested in history, particularly that of the 20th century, of
the military, and the history of Poland; those hunting for books that
demythologize Polish history.
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Bogusław Kopka
Bogusław Kopka (born in 1969) is a graduate of the History Department
of the Warsaw University. He received his doctoral degree in 2006.
He has published articles in Rzeczpospolita, Gazeta Wyborcza, Nasz
Dziennik, Polska. The Times, Polityka, Wprost, Ozon. He is the author
of Stan wojenny w dokumentach władz PRL 1980–1983, IPN 2001
(co‑authored with G. Majchrzak), Obozy pracy w Polsce 1944–1950. Przewodnik
encyklopedyczny, Ośrodek KARTA 2002, Konzentrationslager Warschau. Historia
i następstwa, IPN 2007 (German edition: Das KZ Warschau, 2010). He has
worked in the Institute of National Remembrance.
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Bogusław Kopka
A Gulag on the Vistula.
On Labor Camps in Poland
Czołg nad Wisłą. O polskich obozach zagłady
Keynote
A seldom-explored chapter of Polish history is finally given an in-depth
analysis.
Sales points
•The author is a seasoned historian and journalist, who has written for all of the most
important newspapers and periodicals in Poland and published several books
• Readable, comprehensive, and fascinating
Date of publication:
Forthcoming
Pages: to come
Category: History
Rights available: World
Description
This thoroughly researched and groundbreaking work of history attempts
to tell the story of the labor camps that were set up in Poland immediately
after World War II by the Soviet occupants, and the extraordinary complexity
of the post‑war situation in Poland in general. A figure who embodies
this complexity, and who serves as the focus of the third chapter, is Salomon
Morel, the only one in his family to survive imprisonment in the Auschwitz
concentration camp. At the war’s end, as a twenty-year-old man, he joined
the communist partisans, and headed one of the largest (concentration)
camps for Poles, established in Silesia. A Gulag on the Vistula provides maps,
historical background, and timelines, explores the fates of women
and children during this period, and provides a fascinating glimpse
into an astonishingly chaotic and turbulent period in Polish history.
Target market
Readers interested in recent history, the history of Europe, and the aftermath
of World War Two, and those eager to fill in “gaps” in the popular history
books.
73
NO N - F I C T IO N
Andrzej Pepłoński
Andrzej Pepłoński is a specialist on police and espionage in the 2nd Republic.
In the People’s Republic Poland he was a Lieutenant-Colonel of the Civic
Militia, and a lecturer at the Internal Affairs Academy.
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Andrzej Pepłoński
War for Hidden Causes.
In the Second Polish Republic’s
Secret Service, 1918–1944
Wojna o tajemnice. W tajnej służbie Drugiej Rzeczypospolitej 1918–1944
Keynote
Real life stories of spies and secret agents, set against the tumultuous period
of the Second World War and the years leading up to it.
Sales points
•A little-known background to the Second World War.
•Catch a glimpse of the real-life precursors to James Bond.
Description
Date of publication: 2011
Pages: 432
Category: History
Rights available: World
Perhaps few Western readers are aware today that in 1918, immediately
following World War I, Poland was frantically organising itself after over
a century without its independence. Fewer still will have a firm idea
of everything this entailed. The present book focuses on one of the most
exciting, and little explored aspects of this reorganisation: the construction
of a secret service. Pepłoński can not be faulted for his ambitions in this
book – he covers the whole period of Poland’s reborn “Second Republic”
(1918–1944). The effect is a volume that will satisfy history buffs with its
in-depth look into espionage and counterespionage, while remaining
eminently accessible to readers approaching the subject for the first time.
Target market
A book with great cross-over potential – it will appeal to those who read
history books, espionage novels, thrillers, books on the World Wars, or those
with an interest in the real-life workings of a secret service.
75
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Sławomir Petelicki
Sławomir Petelicki was born 13 September 1946 in Warsaw. He was general
of a brigade of the Polish army in a state of rest, and the first head
of the GROM Military Unit. In the year 2000 he was chosen as gentleman
of the year by ‘Gentleman’ magazine. He is presently chairman
of the Foundation for the Former Soldiers of the GROM Special Unit.
76
NO N - F I C T IO N
Sławomir Petelicki, Michał Komar
GROM: Power and Honour
GROM. Siła i honor
Keynote
A behind-the-scenes look at Poland’s most well-trained secret forces unit.
Sales points
•The first such interview with a major player in the post-Communist Polish military.
Description
Old high-school friends meet after several decades for a series of interviews
that will put you at the edge of your seat – and keep you there. General
Petelicki spent twenty years in high ranking positions in the Communist
Polish government, in including diplomatic service in New York in the 1970s,
and in the 1990s he came to lead Poland’s most exclusive unit of crack
special forces assigned to fight terrorism – the legendary GROM [THUNDER]
unit. This is his first interview of such depth, revealing backroom politics
that will make readers smile and shudder in turn, the beginnings of his unit
and its consecutive hardships; and there are surely a number of passages
that read like the most gripping modern thriller. Interviewer Michał Komar
is just the man for the job: he is the author of plays, a journalist and a film
critic, and his long-term friendship with Petelicki gives him a special kind
of insight – and the interviews an intimacy that is rare.
Date of publication: 2011
Pages: 304
Category: History
Rights available: World
Target market
Those who are interested in in-depth interviews, military strategy
and the behind-the-scenes world of politics and the army.
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NO N - F I C T IO N
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.
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NO N - F I C T IO N
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
Sales 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
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.
Date of publication: 2011
Pages: 772
Category: History
Rights available: World
“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.
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Elżbieta Baniewicz
Elżbieta Baniewicz — a journalist, theater critic, and a graduate of Warsaw
University and the PWST Theater School in Warsaw. She has published
several hundred texts on theater, in Teatr, Kultura, Theatre en Pologne,
Performing Art Journal, and Theatre Journal, among others. She runs the
theater column in Twórczość. She has written monographs on Kazimierz
Kutz, Janusz Gajos, and Anna Dymna.
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Elżbieta Baniewicz
Erwin Axer. The Theater of Words
and Thoughts
Erwin Axer. Teatr słowa i myśli
Keynote
Erwin Axer, a master of literary style – a tale of the life and work of a great
pupil of Leon Schiller
Sales points
•The first such exhaustive monograph on this outstanding director on the market
Description
Outstanding director, founder, and creator of the golden era of one of
Warsaw’s most important stages, the Współczesny Theater – Erwin Axer.
Elżbieta Baniewicz’s book is the first monograph to deal with Erwin Axer so
extensively and insightfully – it also tells the story of Polish theater of the
20th century. It documents what is most important, and at the same time
so fleeting in theater – unique performances, sets, costumes, and the roles
created by the greatest Polish actors of the century past.
Richly illustrated, furnished with many quotes from Axer himself, whether
from interviews, theater programs, or sources that have never been
published – the director’s archive, autobiography, and letters.
Date of publication: 2010
Pages: 524
Category: Biography –
Autobiography - Memoirs
Rights available: World
“The most important thing is that a book about one of the most important figures
in Polish 20th century theater has finally been released. And that this is not
a work petrifying its subject into a brass monument, but showing him in many
aspects of his life.”
Tomasz Mościcki, Dziennik Gazeta Prawna
“How to turn a minimalist program into a great work of art – this is the subject
of the extensive monograph on Axer, written by the great theater critic Elżbieta
Baniewicz. She describes not only the life and work of the director, but also his
work system, which she was able to observe on many occasions. The result is
a half-academic, half-serious book that remains fascinating – because its subject
is such a fascinating figure.”
Leszek Bugajski, Newsweek
Target market
Theater historians and lovers, directors, actors, theater academy students,
readers interested in culture and art.
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Michał Głowiński
One of the most celebrated experts on the history
of Polish literature
The author of Polish studies books that are now
considered classics
Michał Głowiński (born 1934) — literary theorist and authority on the
contemporary history of Polish literature, professor at the Institute of Polish
Literary Research at the Polish Academy of Sciences, an academic with a
great deal of innovation and puissance, with inspiring influence, the author
of basic texts on Polish literature, as well as of original and important
memoirs (including Black Seasons, and A Footbridge over Time. Pictures from
a Town, 2005). In 1999 his book entitled Black Seasons was nominated for the
Nike Polish Literary Award.
Awards and distinctions
Nominated for the prestigious Nike Polish Literary Award for Black Seasons
Winner of the Jan Parandowski literary award, given out by the PEN Club for lifetime
achievement
Honorary doctorates from the Adam Mickiewicz University and Opole University
Winner of the Herder Award, given out by the Alfred Toepfer Foundation in Hamburg
Books by the same author available from
Wydawnictwo Literackie Publishers
Other
Wings and Heel
Telimena’s Interior Monologue
A Footbridge over Time. Pictures from a Town
Broken Tales. Small Sketches 1998–2007
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Michał Głowiński
Autobiography
Kręgi obcości. Opowieść autobiograficzna
Keynote
An insightful, personal and universal study by one of Poland’s most admired
literary critics.
Sales points
•An author of Polish literary criticism that is already regarded as classic
•One of the most highly-ranked critics of Polish literature
•Winner of the prestigious PEN Club Award for lifetime achievement
Description
Date of publication: 2009
Pages: 536
Category: Biography –
Autobiography – Memoirs
Rights available: World
In his autobiography, Michał Głowiński appears as a careful observer and
sober commentator, and a writer able to forge increasing existential
suspense. He tells not only of his own personal experiences, but places them
in a broader context — his generation’s experiences, and those of the world
in which he grew up in and presently inhabits.
The times of the occupation, his family home after the war, his studies
in the Stalinist era, March ’68, work at the Institute for Literary Research,
which was then an oasis of freedom, his first travels abroad, the carnival
of Solidarity… With his customary passion, the author describes these
political, social and cultural realities, while adding in some private
confessions.
The autobiography will be published by Wydawnictwo Literackie Publishers
in Fall 2009.
Target market
Readers of autobiographies, memoirs, non-fiction, those interested in history
and literature
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Katarzyna Grochola, Dorota
Szelągowska
Tapestry
Maskotka
Keynote
An intimate, revealing, and heartwarming look into the lives and
relationship of Poland’s favorite mother and daughter.
Sales points
•Grochola’s every book tops the national bestseller charts in Poland
•Full of photographs, reflections on life and the family, and bite-sized pearls of wisdom.
Description
Date of publication: 2011
Pages: 376
Category: Biography –
Autobiography – Memoirs
Rights available: World
It’s an idea so natural and appealing that one wonders how it hadn’t been
conceived before. Take two of Poland’s most beloved and best-selling authors
– who also happen to be mother and daughter – and have them compose an
intimate, playful and often touching double portrait. The result is something
like a (s)he says/she says compilation of takes on events both major and
minor, from dealing with Facebook and household pets to betrayal and
surviving toxic relationships, seen through the eyes of two women from
different generations, with different ranges of experience. Their versions
quarrel, contradict each other, come together in surprising places, and
ultimately go to prove that no matter how much they may disagree on the
details, the love between a daughter and a mother is a marvelous thing.
Tapestry is a kind of homage to a bond that is too rarely celebrated in
literature – mother and daughter – written by two sparkling personalities.
My life was calm and settled. A son, a Financé, a house, a loan, a job, some dogs.
A dinner out on the town from time to time, friends and acquaintances. A nice
set-up. And then the telephone rang. ‘Hello, dear, we’re going to be on Dancing
with the Stars,’ my mother said, which sounded more or less the same as being
told that we would be flying to the Moon the week following, or that we would
be starting up a silkworm farm. I honestly admit that I originally ignored this
information, as I did with other news my mother gave me. That was my mistake.
– From the book.
Target market
Enthusiasts of “chick lit” with a heart, those looking for a good read about
mother/daughter relationships, or wanting a glimpse “behind the scenes” at
Grochola’s life.
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Julia Hartwig
Julia Hartwig (born in 1921 in Lublin) is a poet, essayist and translator.
She has written a couple of collections of poems, which allowed her
to become one of major authors of contemporary poety. She is not
easily classified, but rather treated as a stand-alone, exceptional figure,
who does not succumb to either passing fashion or snobbery.
Awards:
ZaiKS Award (1976),
Fondation d’Hautvilliers “Prix de Traduction” Award (France, 1978),
Polish PEN Club Award (1979, 1997),
Jurzykowski Literary Award (USA, 1981),
Thornton Wilder Prize (USA, 1986),
Georg Trakl Award (Austria, 1991),
Ministry of Culture Award for lifetime achievement (2001),
Władysław and Nella Turzański Foundation Award (2004),
Great Cultural Foundation Award,
Polish PEN Club Jan Parandowski Award (2009).
Four-time nominee for the Nike Literary Award.
Other books for WL:
Poezje wybrane / Selected Poems
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Julia Hartwig
Diaries
Dziennik
Keynote
An extraordinary document by a famous poetess, showing how colorful and
inspiring the post-war period could be
Sales points
•The winner of many prestigious awards, four-times nominated for the NIKE Award.
•One of Poland’s most outstanding poets, an acknowledged translator of literature
• Entering her ninetieth year, Hartwig is a major figure in the history of Polish literature
• Features recollections of many important names in 20th century literature
Date of publication: 2012
Pages: 464
Category: Biography –
Autobiography – Memoirs
Rights available: World
Description
This journal speaks more in-depth of Hartwig’s work and important
events in social and political life than her previous works have, but it
perhaps focuses most strongly on divulging the poet’s own trials, and on
descriptions of her friends, including those who have passed away. She also
devotes a great deal of space to books – as, alongside her own writing, these
occupy the most important place in her life.
The following day Ania and I make an excursion to Campo de’ Fiori, where
we delighted in seeing the booths filled with vegetables and flowers. Beautiful
weather, a bit chilly, but the sun is warm. We seat ourselves in a restaurant on
the sunny side of the street, already filling up with tourists in search of some sun
and good coffee, just like us. We lunch in the same restaurant, I order canelloni
with ricotta and spinach. The previous day we had eaten lunch near the Fontanna
di Trevi with Adam, who was leaving the next day. Adam threw a coin into the
fountain and hoped that he would have the chance to return to Rome. Ania
immortalized it in a photograph.
22 February 2010
Target market
Readers of memoirs, of fine and ambitious contemporary literature,
and of non‑fiction.
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Iza Komendołowicz
Iza Komendołowicz — a journalist, vice-editor-in-chief of Pani magazine,
and co-author of an extensive interview with Witold Pyrkosz.
Other books for WL:
Witold Pyrkosz. Twice Born. Memoirs
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Iza Komendołowicz
Elka
Elka
Keynote
A story that Dostoyevsky might have written – a portrait of the Polish
Marylin Monroe, full of ups and downs, successes and failures, loves
and solitude.
Sales points
•The compelling story of Elżbieta Czyżewska – outstanding actress, loved and loathed
at the same time.
Description
Date of publication:2012
Pages: 408
Category: Biography –
Autobiography – Memoirs
Rights available: World
A bold and factual book, providing a behind-the-scenes look
at the legend‑shrouded private and professional life of one of the most
popular – and most controversial – Polish film actresses of the 1960s.
Successes and failures, loves and solitude, grappling with alcoholism
and a cancerous tumor, a vivid picture of the cinema artists’ environment,
full of romances, intrigues, and ruthless rivalries. The story of a unique,
proud, and intelligent woman, who was also cruel, lost, and storing some
painful memories from her childhood. She was phenomenal, devilishly
seductive, constantly on the prowl, and greedy for love and acceptance.
Among those speaking about the starlet are actors, directors, writers,
artists, friends, and acquaintances, from both Poland and the USA:
Agnieszka Holland, Daniel Olbrychski, Andrzej Wajda, Joanna Pacuła,
Omar Sangare, Kazimierz Kutz, Krystyna Zachwatowicz, Olga Lipińska,
Daniel Passent, Barbara Sass, and Nancy Weber.
The book is richly illustrated with photographs and documents.
Target market
Readers of memoirs, autobiographies, biographies, adorers of E. Czyżewska’s
talents, those interested in the history of cinema.
88
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Ewa Kuryluk
Another outstanding book by this famous Krakow
artist
Nominated for the prestigious Nike Literary Award
Ewa Kuryluk (b. 1946) — a famous painter, writer, poet, essayist and art
historian. Born in Krakow, presently lives in Paris, New York and Warsaw.
A pioneer in avant-garde textile installations. She has written twenty books,
including numerous essays on art. She was nominated for the prestigious
Nike Literary Award in 2005 for her most personal novel, Goldi, which
features her childhood recollections.
Awards and distinctions
Nominated for the prestigious Nike Literary Award for Goldi.
Books by the same author published by Wydawnictwo
Literackie
Novels
Frascati
Goldi (2011, re-edition)
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Ewa Kuryluk
Goldi
Goldi
Keynote
The first instalment of an autobiography that encapsulates Poland’s troubled
history in a single woman.
Sales points
•The book was a finalist for the prestigious Nike Award.
•Part one of a saga whose third volume is currently being written.
Description
Date of publication: 2011
Pages: 208
Category: Biography –
Autobiography – Memoirs
Rights available: World
Artist and art historian, a writer of Jewish extraction residing in Paris,
Ewa Kuryluk is a figure of many faces. Goldi is chiefly the story of her
father – a Polish Minister of Culture, Polish Ambassador in Vienna, and one
of the Righteous among Nations – and of his relationship with his daughter.
The family is presented here as a kind of island refuge against the turmoil
of the outside world. Compelling, authentic and sincere, this book is above
a view of personal and private history seen through the eyes of a young girl.
The focus therefore shifts from events of world significance to accounts
of strolls through Vienna, a dress purchased for a chess convention,
and meetings with a writer whose works were never to be read, having been
devoured by a precocious little guinea pig named Goldi. The book is richly
furnished with photographs from the time period.
[Ewa Kuryluk’s] family concentrates all the most important things, as if through
a lens. Great love, terrible disease, the beauty of coincidence, flourish and sorrow,
misery and ecstasy, whispers and screams, absurdity and abundance.
Agnieszka Drotkiewicz, “Lampa”
This may be a personal memoir, but its significance stretches far beyond the
frame of a family story. Goldi is perhaps the most intimate of Ewa Kuryluk’s
books to date.
Marek Radziwon, “Gazeta Wyborcza”
Target market
Those interested in memoirs and historical sagas, post-war Polish history
and Jewish issues, those who would like a first-hand view of a complex
historical time period.
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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.
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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.
Sales 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
Date of publication: 2007
Pages: 176
Category: Biography –
Autobiography – Memoirs
Rights available: World
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”
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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.
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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.
Sales 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
Date of publication: 2007
Pages: 280
Category: Biography –
Autobiography – Memoirs
Rights available: World
“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.
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Jadwiga Staniszkis, Artur Cieślar
Jadwiga Staniszkis — a famous and celebrated sociologist, a professor
at Warsaw University and the National-Louis University in Nowy Sącz,
and a journalist.
Artur Cieślar — a writer, reporter, translator, poet, and traveler wrapped
into one.
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Jadwiga Staniszkis, Artur Cieślar
East and West. An Encounter
Wschód i Zachód. Spotkania
Keynote
Getting inside the Middle Kingdom: a remarkable encounter between two
people and two worlds: a professor and a writer/traveler, East and West
Sales points
•A highly regarded professor and a Buddhist writer hold a fascinating conversation
about the similarities and differences between the worlds of the West and the East
Description
Date of publication: 2011
Pages: 280
Category: Biography –
Autobiography – Memoirs
Rights available: World
A famous professor speaks with a writer, poet, and traveler.
An exchange between two people fascinated with the East for different
reasons. Jadwiga Staniszkis is interested in comparing the thought of
the Orient with that of the West – she is fascinated by the philosophy,
the literature, the concept of the person, society, and power. She considers
the differences and tries to understand them. In the first part of the book,
the authors discuss her path to encountering the East.
In the second part, Artur Cieślar speaks of his adventures in the East.
He does not focus on understanding it intellectually. He is more interested
in what will give him spiritual development, and allow him to function
better in the contemporary world.
Target market
A wide range of readers: those interested in the culture of the East,
philosophy, sociology, history, politics, and spirituality.
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Tomasz Stańko
Tomasz Stańko (born 1942) — is a world renowned trumpet player,
considered to be one of the best jazz trumpet players in the world.
His concerts have always drawn a huge audience, with the concert halls
all over the worl being filled up.
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Rafał Księżyk
Rafał Księżyk (born 1970) — is a journalist and a music critic. He has
participated in creating the contemporary Polish music and pop culture
press since the 1990s. He has worked as an editor in such magazines as
„Brum”, „Plastik”, „Antena Krzynu”, and his articles on mucic appeared in
all major specialist newspapers as well as „Gazeta Wyborcza”, „Newsweek”
and „Przekrój”. He is currently a subeditor in „Playboy”, and he writesmusic
reviews for „Machina” and cultural programme TVP Kultura.
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Tomasz Stańko, Rafał Księżyk
Desperado
Desperado
Keynote
A feast of private interviews with legendary Polish jazz trumpeter Tomasz
Stańko.
Sales points
•The most in-depth series of interviews with Tomasz Stańko available to date.
•The story of a vivid life through turbulent times.
•Supplemented with plenty of photographs, a timeline, and Stańko’s discography.
Description
Date of publication: 2010
Pages: 544
Category: Biography –
Autobiography – Memoirs
Rights sold: UK
“I chose the life of a desperado. On the edge. On the brink of death.” This
quote from one of the many generous interviews with Tomasz Stańko
included in this volume both explains the title and gives you some idea of
what to expect. The book traces the musician’s 50-year jazz odyssey from
his first steps in the 1960s to the present, beginning with his days in the
famous Krzysztof Komeda ensemble, making soundtracks to Roman Polanski
films and living as a student in Krakow, and concluding with the established
international celebrity we now know, recording for the cult ECM label and
touring the world with his trumpet. Stańko seems to have met everyone
making jazz on the scene in Poland over the years – which were much less
than favorable times for jazz musicians – but he also has a great deal to
say about musicians active in the West throughout the same period – Miles
Davis, Ornette Coleman, John Coletrane, and many others. Like many of
his Western counterparts, Stańko also struggled with drug addiction for
decades, and in “Desperado” he speaks frankly of his use of heroin, hashish,
copious alcohol and many other substances, and of his ultimate triumph
over his addictions. The rest of the book’s five hundred pages cover a wide
variety of topics, from Stańko’s loves and travels, his long path to success,
his family, and communist Poland, but above all the conversations deal
with music – reflections on his own work as a composer and musician,
and fresh takes on jazz music from Duke Ellington and Chet Baker to Cecil
Taylor and Sun Ra. In sum, this is compulsory reading for anyone interested
in the history of jazz, from a perspective seldom encountered in the West,
and a fascinating account of what it meant to be a brilliant jazz musician in
a communist country.
Stańko talks like he plays. His phrases come out a bit messy, but they’re honest
and compelling. These are fascinating confessions by one of Poland’s greatest
artists.
Donata Subbotko, Gazeta Wyborcza
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This is also a book of very private confessions. Stańko’s taut responses contain
more truth than other people’s long-winded statements.
Jacek Marczyński, Gazeta Rzeczpospolita
The image of Stańko that emerges from these interviews might surprise
you. Everyone knows that he’s a great trumpeter. What’s interesting are the
circumstances surrounding how he came onto the gray, communist Polish jazz
scene “like a tornado,” his life with groupies, and his balance on the edge of life,
as fragile as a line of cocaine.
Magazyn Literacki
Target market
Jazz lovers, those interested in intimate interviews with famous celebrities.
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Dorota Sumińska
Dorota Sumińska (born 1957) has been a veterinary doctor for many years
by profession, is an animal psychologist by passion, and has hosted popular
radio and television programs on animals for some time (including
“Zwierzowiec” on channel TVP1, a spin-off of her previous “Zwierzyńca”
and “Zwierzenia na cztery łapy” programs on Polish Radio). She has also
written handbooks and other volumes about animals: Happy Cat, Happy Dog,
Cuddle Your Dog to Your Heart and Sensitive Issues.
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Dorota Sumińska
Animal in the Bedroom
Zwierz w łóżku
Keynote
Science written in a language and with a warmth that everyone can enjoy
Sales points
•Fun and accessible, yet thought-provoking
•A unique combination of popular psychology and zoology
Description
Date of publication: 2010
Pages: 282
Category: Biography –
Autobiography – Memoirs
Rights available: World
Some ten years ago, a film called Microcosmos paired opera music with a pair
of romantically entwined snails and proved that, incredibly enough, these
lowly creatures could be seen as passionate. In Animal in the Bedroom,
veterinarian and animal psychologist Dorota Suminska goes a step further
– she rifles through a whole catalogue of human emotions and behaviors
and demonstrates how they are reflected or even partially explained by close
observations of the animal world. Whether comparing a mother’s first kisses
to her child with dogs’ regurgitation of food into the mouths of their young,
or the mother African buffalo’s overpowering love for her son with the
drunken exploits of a friend and his all-forgiving mother, Suminska’s tales
maintain a warmth and humor that will keep readers engaged and amused
through its many and varied chapters. Ultimately, the real value
of Suminska’s book goes much deeper, however – it teaches us to see
ourselves and our foibles in a whole new light, and it imparts a sense
of wonder and a whole new affection for the natural world surrounding us.
A page-turner – as this author’s books always are. And a real eye-opener!
“Wrozka” Christmas guide
In this book we come across parrots, horses, octopi, leopards… […] The masses
of interesting details and Suminska’s light touch are the aces up the sleeve
of this very enjoyable book.
“Dziennik Polski”
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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.
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Danuta Wałęsa
Dreams and Secrets
Marzenia i tajemnice
Ed. Piotr Adamowicz
The Bestselling Polish Book of 2011 – 320 000 copies currently
on the market!
Date of publication: 23.11.11
Pages: 552
Category: Biography –
Autobiography – Memoirs
Rights sold: Czech (pending)
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 brutal/violent, 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.
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Ludwika Włodek-Biernat
Ludwika Włodek-Biernat is a great-granddaughter of Jarosła 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).
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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.
Sales 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
Date of publication:
Forthcoming
Pages: to come
Category: Biography –
Autobiography – Memoirs
Rights available: World
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.
106
NO N - F I C T IO N
Andrzej Wiśniewski
Andrzej Wiśniewski — psychologist and psychotherapist. For twenty-five
years, he has been engaged as a family and marriage therapist, and also
conducts individual therapy. He lectures at the College of Social Psychology
and is psychology supervisor at the Polish Psychological Association and
Polish Psychiatric Association. He works in the Psychoeducation Laboratory
team. Co-author of the book Loving Relationships and Separations.
107
NO N - F I C T IO N
Katarzyna Grochola, Andrzej Wiśniewski
Marital and Extra-Marital Fun and
Games
Gry i zabawy małżeńskie i pozamałżeńskie
Keynote
A self-help guide which throws new light on every relationship and proves that
not much is needed for the word “forever” to become reality.
Sales points
•The most popular drama novel writer in Poland, whose books sell by the millions.
•Each of her books is a major best-seller.
Description
Date of publication: 2011
Pages: 336
Category: Self-Help
Rights available: World
Serious questions and honest answers, humour and surprising comparisons,
but above all an unswerving search for the truth – one of the most popular
Polish female authors talks with famous therapist Andrzej Wiśniewski about
games and fun in relationships, those which are innocent and those which are
risky.
“The reader merely needs to have the courage of her convictions when taking
a decision, and no prescriptions or ready solutions should be needed, all the
more so, as there are none. The authors have therefore supplied the pleasure
that flows from animated conversation, while having a clean conscience in
the knowledge that they are fulfilling the expectations of those who turn to
Marital and Extra-Marital Fun and Games”.
Andrzej Wiśniewski
Target market
Champions of Katarzyna Grochola’s output, readers of self-help guides, those
interested in psychology, sociology and psychotherapy.
108
NO N - F I C T IO N
Katarzyna Grochola, Andrzej Wiśniewski
Loving Relationships and Break Ups
Związki i rozwiązki miłosne
Keynote
A self-help guide which is provoking a storm and lending hope to the idea of a
happy, error-free tomorrow.
Sales points
•The most popular drama novel writer in Poland, whose books sell by the millions.
•Each of her books is a major best-seller.
Description
Date of publication: 2010
Pages: 306
Category: Self-Help
Rights available: World
Far from obvious questions and surprising answers, sparkling wit and moments
of reverie, true stories and original reflections – one of the most popular
female authors talks with Andrzej Wiśniewski, a family therapist, about loving
relationships, those that are good and those that are bad.
“The reader merely needs to have the courage of her convictions when taking
a decision, and no prescriptions or ready solutions should be needed, all the more so,
as there are none. The authors have therefore supplied the pleasure that flows from
animated conversation, while having a clean conscience in the knowledge that they
are fulfilling the expectations of those who turn to this book”.
Andrzej Wiśniewski
“This book is a unique opportunity to eavesdrop on a conversation about marriage
and loneliness, love and hate, fidelity and unfaithfulness – about what binds people
and what divides them. There’s one single thing in the world for which it’s worth
doing anything. That’s love of course”.
Katarzyna Grochola
Target market
Champions of Katarzyna Grochola’s output, readers of self-help guides, those
interested in psychology, sociology and psychotherapy.
109
NO N - F I C T IO N
Edward Kajdański
Edward Kajdański (b. 1925) – a writer, journalist, and diplomat. Born
in Manchukuo, where he attended a Polish gymnasium (middle school)
and began pharmacy studies at the North Manchurian University. In 1951
he left for Poland during the repatriation. He worked at the Ministry
of Foreign Affairs, as a trade advisor in Beijing, and also served as consulate
in the Canton Province.
110
NO N - F I C T IO N
Edward Kajdański
Chinese Medicine for Beginners
Medycyna chińska dla każdego
Keynote
The world of Chinese medicine from the perspective of a many-year resident
of China – a remarkable combination of knowledge, passion and talent
Sales points
•A multi-angled guide through Chinese medicine for the beginner
•A guidebook written by a specialist, born and raised in China
Description
Date of publication: 2011
Pages: 320
Category: Self-Help
Rights available: World
A popular guide to Traditional Chinese Medicine for everyone who would
like to find out how to restore harmony to the body and mind, how to
improve vital energy, and how to live a long and healthy life.
The “specialist from China” guides the reader through the best-kept
secrets of the world of Chinese philosophy, culture, medicine, and customs,
as a person who once lived among the Chinese long enough to understand,
learn, and communicate their mindset and tradition.
The reader will encounter the mysterious-sounding yin/yang theory,
the transformation of the five elements and chi (lifeforce), and will also
find out how precise diagnoses can be made through testing the pulse and
the color of the tongue. Later comes the mighty acupuncture, a method
used for years during anaesthetic operations. There are also descriptions
of the most important herbs and minerals used by Chinese doctors.
The reader will also find out how doctors used a very complex procedure
to perform check-ups on Chinese lady aristocrats, and how the medical
Canon of the Golden Emperor arrived in Gdańsk and Krakow back during
the Renaissance. The book also reveals from whom Avicenna would have
copied his medical textbook, and whether Copernicus could have known
about the Chinese vaccines against measles.
E. Kajdański makes splendid use of his vast knowledge and passion,
combining stories about himself and his ties with China with explanations
of Chinese philosophies and customs.
The volume is richly illustrated with materials from old Chinese medical
textbooks. Accompanying the main text, there is a list of the books
and medicines mentioned in the text, and their brief descriptions.
Target market
A book for everyone, especially those curious about alternative medicines
and the culture of the East; for those suffering from an illness, and in search
of an alternate cure. Readers of guidebooks.
111
NO N - F I C T IO N
Irena A. Stanisławska, Dorota Krzywicka,
Dorota Sumińska
How to Live in Harmony with
the Bigger and Smaller Members
of the Household
Jak wychować dziecko, psa, kota… i faceta
Keynote
A unique and lively approach to some very challenging issues.
Sales points
•All three “authors” have a great deal of experience behind them, and they make an electric
combination.
Date of publication: 2011
Pages: 326
Category: Self-Help
Rights available: World
•A very new slant on a familiar – and ever-popular – subject: how to be happy with the
ones you love.
Description
The interviewers are Irena Stanisławska, onetime journalist on extreme sports
for “Playboy” magazine, and more recently a writer of books on psychology, and
Dorota Krzywicka, a psychologist who has earned some popularity on a Polish
talk show and through her newspaper columns. Their subject is Dorota
Sumińśka – a veterinarian, writer, and author of radio and television
programmes about animals. In this book-length interview the women explore
family relationships, contact with pets, and the analogies between them.
Dynamic, funny, and sometimes arrestingly intimate, this book succeeds with
its sheer charm, and with its unexpected flashes of wisdom and insight. The
language is not afraid to be intelligent, but this never gets in the way of the fun
and delight of reading, and taking part in the interplay between these three
women. “Chick lit” for the whole family.
Target market
Those look for intelligent and modern advice on family matters,
without judgement or moralising.
112
NO N - F I C T IO N
Ewa Woydyłło
How to Live with Depression,
but Not in Depression
Bo jesteś człowiekiem. Żyć z depresją, ale nie w depresji
Keynote
This book takes an illness that strikes growing numbers of people and
strives to make it comprehensible and less frightening, without trivializing
its gravity.
Sales points
• An author of around ten popular psychology titles, and a major voice in spreading
Alcoholics Anonymous around Poland.
• A book that is helpful, wise, and perhaps most importantly, healing.
Date of publication: 2012
Pages: 284
Category: Self-Help
Rights available: World
Description
For her latest installment in a series of books that invite the reader into
the therapist’s office, Woydyłło tackles depression. She begins with simple
observations, allowing for the sickness to be diagnosed and differentiating
it from temporary mood swings, which are often mistaken for depression.
Additionally, the author urges visiting a psychologist or a doctor. With deep
sympathy for the gravity of depression, she helps the reader on the road
leading out of the sickness. Free of specialist jargon, this book speaks to the
reader in simple, clear language, explaining non-medical ways of treating
the illness, and concluding with numerous varieties of professional help.
She also makes use of concrete examples taken from literature or real
life. The psychological tests featured in the book help readers figure out
if they is prone to depression, how they deal with problems, what kind
of relationships they have with other people, and if their life is likely to
make them depressed or not. After reading, we have come to a firmer
understanding of this sickness, and we believe that getting better is possible
– and this is the book’s most important and valuable message.
Target market
Readers of self-help books and psychology “work-books”, readers of women’s
magazines.
113
NO N - F I C T IO N
Ewa Lipska
Ewa Lipska was born in 1945 in Kakow. She is one of the most celebrated
poets whose works stimulate the readers intellectually as well as are
considered to be widely accessible to general public. Her poems were first
published in Gazeta Krakowska while she was still in high school in 1961.
She is a member of Polish and Austrian PEN Club, the Polish Academy of Arts
and Sciences as well as a member – founder of The Association of Polish
Writers.She was an editor at the poetry department at Wydawnictwo
Literackie. She worked at the Polish embassy in Vienna and was a head
of the Polish Institute there. She currently lives and works in Krakow.
She has received up to date numerous literary awards and has participated
in many international festivals of poetry. Her poems are widely translated
and have appeared in over forty collections.Her recent volume of verse
include Newton’s Orange (2007) and Echo (2010). She published her first novel
– Sefer – in 2009.
114
POE T RY
Ewa Lipska
Echo
Pogłos
Keynote
The long-awaited return of one of Poland’s most celebrated poets.
Sales points
• A living classic of Polish literature, whose work only continues to mature.
• Poetry that is both intellectually rewarding and widely accessible.
Description
Date of publication: 2010
Pages: 56
Category: Poetry
Rights available: World
In her native Poland, each new volume of Ewa Lipska’s poetry is a publishing
event, eagerly awaited by readers and critics alike. Echo, a slim volume of
eighteen poems interspersed with short prose-poems, has been no exception
to this rule. The prose poems are affectionate letters to Franz Schubert,
alternately filled with a longing and nostalgia for a simpler, more tranquil
reality, and expressing a desire for the tragic drama felt in opera. The poems
“proper” often deal with the subject of Lipska’s homeland, and the yearning
to gain some distance from it. As such, they are much more than reflections
on Polish identity; Lipska is wise enough to universalize her work to deal
with the connection between the individual and the national identity.
The other major theme of Echo concerns death, which appears in numerous
guises, whether a looming presence, or a dog left tied outside a shop,
muzzled but patiently waiting. As Professor Marian Stala has summed up:
“Ewa Lipska’s latest volume is the ever-revitalizing, intense poetry well
all know so well, the kind that demands repeated readings. The “echo” of
the title is a metaphor for the stubborn return of the past. It is an invitation
to think over your own life, to look at the space and the time of existence
once more, to look at oneself and at others.”
This is the Lipska I like. I’d advise all beginning poets [...] to start reading her
work.
Malgorzata I. Niemczynska, Gazeta Wyborcza
One of our most outstanding contemporary poets has made us wait a long time
for her new book. But it was well worth the wait. As usual, her wise and beautiful
poems delight with their profound reflections on passing, life and death, and love
– including love of one’s homeland.
Gala
Target market
Those looking for a confident, assured, and deeply intelligent voice in
contemporary poetry.
115
POE T RY
Piotr Matywiecki
Piotr Matywiecki (born in 1943) is an eminent author of volumes of verse,
an essayist and a literary critic.
His collection of poems – Ta chmura powraca – was shortlisted for the Nike
Prize in 2006 and his biography of Julian Tuwim entitled Tuwim’s Face
was shortlisted for the same prize in 2008.It also received Nagroda Literacka
Gdynia in the essay category.
116
POE T RY
Piotr Matywiecki
The Audience
Widownia
Keynote
Contemporary poetry for the discerning reader by a contemporary master
of the form.
Sales points
• Winner of the Silesius and the Gdynia awards, and nominee for the Nike and Gdynia
• A poet of the older generation in top form
Description
Date of publication:
Forthcoming
Pages: to come
Category: poetry
Rights available: World
Matywiecki’s poetry demands a great deal of concentration from the reader,
but the effort pays off in spades. The poet sets out on his project with a great
deal of focus; he is always distrustful of language, suspicious of philosophical
slogans and thought cliches. The “Audience” of the title can be taken
as metaphor for the situation the poet participates in. The paradoxes
that Matywiecki culls from language serve to show numerous ruptures in our
understanding of the world and ourselves, our understanding of history
and memory. The audience is a place where observers, including the poet
himself, are placed at the mercy of the ongoing spectacle – but also where
the poet can look to find someone to listen. Matywiecki here reaffirms
his reputation as one of Poland’s most thought-provoking and conscious
contemporary poets.
The Audience should be shelved with lyrical/meditative poetry, strongly tied
to the historical, existential, and artistic experience of the individual. This is a book
for all those in search of a book of profound thoughts and moving experiences.
These readers will appreciate how outstanding Piotr Matywiecki’s work is.
Marian Stala
Target market
Readers of challenging, ambitious contemporary poetry.
117
POE T RY
Jarosław Mikołajewski
Jarosław Mikołajewski (b. 1960) — a poet, writer, and translator from
the Italian; he writes on literature and art. He is the author of six volumes
of poetry, as well as novels. His poems have been translated into Italian,
German, Hebrew, and Greek. He has won many prestigious award. He is also
a journalist at Gazeta Wyborcza.
Awards
Kazimiera Iłłakowiczówna Poetry Award
Brother Albert Award
The Barbara Sadowska Literary Award
The New Poets’ Neighborhood Award
Other books for WL:
Tea for a Camel
A Sentimental Portrait of Ryszard Kapuściński
The Male Sense
118
POE T RY
Jarosław Mikołajewski
Broken Glasses
Zbite szklanki
Keynote
A master of poetry hits the mark with a minimum of words
Sales points
•One of Poland’s most praised contemporary poets
•Winner of many prestigious awards
•His poetry has been translated into many languages
Description
Date of publication: 2012
Pages: 92
Category: Poetry
Rights available: World
A new volume of poetry by one of Poland’s most highly praised
contemporary poets.
“Your poems have found not only recognition in my eyes, but in me you have
a true lover of your poetry. What strikes me is the simplicity which is generally
achieved after many years of struggling, generally just prior to death. There is
a certain danger here of being too literal, but you – with the help of our God
Apollo – happily avoid this trap…”
Zbigniew Herbert to Jarosław Mikołajewski
“In terms of the density of emotion, Mikołajewski’s most recent volumes exceed
the work of all our other poets. Alongside the joy of life we find a premonition
of death – almost every poem runs through the entire gamut of moods,
from joyful vitality to despairing melancholy. This poet can be a magician,
an illusionist – he knows the power of fascination, he seduces.”
Piotr Matywiecki, poet and literary critic
Target market
Poetry lovers.
119
List of Authors Available for Translation
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120
32.
33.
34.
35.
Aleksandrowicz Julian, „Kartki z dziennika doktora Twardego”
Anderman Janusz, „Fotografie”
Anderman Janusz, „Gra na zwłokę”
Anderman Janusz, „Największy słoń na świecie”
Anderman Janusz, „Cały czas”
Axer Erwin, „Czwarte ćwiczenia pamięci”
Baniewicz Elżbieta, „Erwin Axer. Teatr słowa i myśli”
Bartoszewski Władysław, Rogulski Rafał & Rydel Jan, „O Niemcach
i Polakach”
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”, cz. 1 i 2
Borkowska Grażyna, „Maria Dąbrowska i Jerzy Stempowski”
Borkowska Grażyna, „Nierozważna i nieromantyczna. O Halinie
Poświatowskiej”
Boy Tadeusz, „Słówka”, wybór H. Markiewicz
Bronner Irena, „Cykady nad Wisłą i Jordanem”
Brylewski Robert, „Autobiografia”
Burzyńska Anna, „Ostatnia miłość i inne kłopoty”
Cejrowski Wojciech, „Gringo wśród dzikich plemion”
Chętkowski Dariusz, „L.d.d.w. – osierocona generacja”
Chętkowski Dariusz, „Z budy. Czy spuścić ucznia z łańcucha?”
Chrzanowski Tadeusz, „Kresy”
Chwalba Andrzej, „Historia wielkiej wojny”
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”
Czapliński Przemysław, „Wzniosłe tęsknoty”
Ćwięk Henryk, „Rotmistrz Sosnowski”
Dasko Henryk, „Dworzec gdański”
121
36. Długosz Leszek, „Dusza na ramieniu” (with a CD)
37. Długosz Leszek, „Piwnica idzie do góry”
38. Dudzińska Magda, Dudziński Andrzej, „Mały alfabet Magdy i Andrzeja
Dudzińskich”
39. Dudziński Andrzej, „Pokrak”
40. Dukaj Jacek, „Córka łupieżcy”
41. Dukaj Jacek, „Extensa”
42. Dukaj Jacek, „Inne pieśni”
43. Dukaj Jacek, „Katedra”
44. Dukaj Jacek, „Lód”
45. Dukaj Jacek, „Perfekcyjna niedoskonałość”
46. Dukaj Jacek, „Wroniec”
47. Dukaj Jacek, „Xavras Wyżryn i inne fikcje narodowe”
48. Dyduch Grzegorz, Świetlicki Marcin, „Katecheci i frustraci”
49. Dygat Stanisław, „Podróż”
50. Dygat Stanisław, „Rozmyślania przy goleniu”
51. Dygat-Dudzińska Magda, „Biedna pani Morris”
52. Dygat-Dudzińska Magda, „Kupić dym, sprzedać mgłę’”
53. Dygat-Dudzińska Magda, „Rozstania”
54. Elektorowicz Leszek, „Niektóre stronice. Wiersze wybrane”
55. Fabiański Marcin, „Drugi Rzym”
56. Ficowski Jerzy „Pantareja”
57. Ficowski Jerzy, „Zawczas z poniewczasem”
58. Filipiak Izabela, „Alma”
59. Filipowicz Kornel, „Cienie”
60. Fox Marta, „Kobieta zaklęta w kamień”
61. Fox Marta, „Zuzanna nie istnieje”
62. Franczak Jerzy, „Da capo”
63. Franczak Jerzy, „Nieludzka komedia”
64. Gabryś Mirosław, „Zwłoki monterów idą w miasto”
65. Galewicz Włodzimierz, „Sokrates i Kirke”
66. Galewicz Włodzimierz, „Z Arystotelesem przez greckie tragedie”
67. Garbicz Adam, „Kino – wehikuł magiczny”
68. Glensk Urszula, „Proza wyzwolonej generacji”
69. Głowiński Michał, „Autobiografia”
70. Głowiński Michał, „Czarne sezony”
71. Głowiński Michał, „Gombrowicz i nadliteratura”
72. Głowiński Michał, „Historia jednej topoli”
73. Głowiński Michał, „Magdalenka z razowego chleba”
74. Głowiński Michał, „Przywidzenia i figury”
75. Głowiński Michał, „Skrzydła i pięta”
76. Grochola Katarzyna, „Cud w eterze”
77. Grochola Katarzyna, Wiśniewski Andrzej, „Gry i zabawy małżeńskie
i pozamałżeńskie”
78. Grochola Katarzyna, „Kryształowy Anioł”
79. Grochola Katarzyna, Szelągowska Dorota, „Makatka” (except
English rights)
80. Grochola Katarzyna, „Podanie o miłość”
81. Grochola Katarzyna, „Przegryźć dżdżownicę”
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Grochola Katarzyna, „Trzepot skrzydeł”
Grochola Katarzyna, „Upoważnienie do szczęścia”
Grochola Katarzyna, „Zielone drzwi”
Grochola Katarzyna, Wiśniewski Andrzej, „Związki i rozwiązki
miłosne”
Gross Natan, „Kim pan jest, panie Grymek”
Grupińska Anka, „Odczytanie Listy. Opowieść o powstańcach
żydowskich”
Górski Klemens, „Obol”
Grzywaczewski Tomasz, „Wyprawa śladami Witolda Glińskiego”
(working title)
Gutowski Wojciech, „Z próżni nieba ku religii życia”
Harasymowicz Jerzy, „Późne lato”
Hartwig Julia, „Dzienniki”
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” (except German rights)
Janko Anna, „Huśtawka Erosa” (except German rights”
Jarzębski Jerzy, „Wszechświat Lema”
Jastrun Mieczysław, „Dzienniki”
Jeromin-Gałuszka Grażyna, „Fryderyka” (working title)
Jurewicz Aleksander, „Dzień przed końcem świata”
Kaczmarek Ryszard, „Polacy w armii Kajzera”
Kaczmarek Ryszard, „Polacy w Wermachcie”
Kajdański Edward, „Medycyna chińska dla każdego”
Kamińska Anna, „Adoptowani”
Karpiński Daniel, „Fikcja”
Karpowicz Ignacy, „Balladyny i romanse”
Karpowicz Ignacy, „Gesty”
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”
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166.
167.
168.
169.
170.
171.
172.
173.
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, „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”
Kowalewski Włodzimierz, „Moralny człowiek”
Kozioł Urszula, „Deseń”
Kozioł Urszula, „Supliki”
Krajewski Kazimierz, „Armia Krajowa na Wschodzie”
Kraskowska Ewa, „Siostry Brönte”
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” (except English)
Kuryluk Ewa, „Goldi”
Kwiatkowski Tadeusz, „Lunapark”
Kydryński Lucjan, „Kroniki rodzinne”
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”
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”
174.
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176.
177.
178.
179.
180.
181.
182.
183.
184.
185.
186.
187.
188.
189.
190.
191.
124
192.
193.
194.
195.
196.
197.
198.
199.
200.
201.
202.
203.
204.
205.
206.
207.
208.
209.
210.
211.
212.
213.
214.
215.
216.
217.
218.
219.
220.
221.
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”
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”
Markiewicz Henryk, Romanowski Andrzej, „Skrzydlate słowa”
Markowski Michał Paweł, „Anatomia ciekawości”
Markowski Michał Paweł, „Czarny nurt. Gombrowicz, świat,
literatura”
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, „Powietrze i cień”
Matywiecki Piotr, „Ta chmura powraca”
Matywiecki Piotr, „Widownia”
Michalak Katarzyna, „Lato w Jagódce”
Michalak Katarzyna, „Powrót do Poziomki”
Michalak Katarzyna, „Rok w Poziomce”
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, „Zbite szklanki”
Mikrut Grzegorz, Wiktor Krzysztof, „Sekty za zamkniętymi drzwiami”
Miłaszewski Stanisław, „Poezje”
Mitosek Zofia, „Pelargonie”
Moczulski Leszek Aleksander, „Jej nigdy za późno”
Motyka Grzegorz, „Od Wołynia do Akcji Wisła”
Mrożek Sławomir, Tarn Andrzej, „Listy”
Musiał Stanisław, „Dwanaście koszy ułomków”
Musiał Stanisław, „Czarne jest czarne”
Komendołowicz Iza, „Elka. Wspomnienie o Elżbiecie Czyżewskiej”
Nasiłowska Anna, „Czteroletnia filozofka”
Nasiłowska Anna, „Jean Paul Sartre i Simone de Beauvoir”
125
222. Nowak Katarzyna, „Kasika Mowka”
223. Nowak Katarzyna T., „Moja mama czarownica. Opowieść o Dorocie
Terakowskiej”
224. Nyczek Tadeusz, „Kos. O poezji Adama Zagajewskiego”
225. Odija Daniel, „Niech to nie będzie sen”
226. Oleś‑Owczarkowa Teresa, „Rauska”
227. Olszewski Michał, „Low tech”
228. Orbitowski Łukasz, „Nadchodzi”
229. Orbitowski Łukasz, „Swięty Wrocław”
230. Orbitowski Łukasz, „Tracę ciepło”
231. Orłoś Kazimierz, „Bez Ciebie nie mogę żyć”
232. Orłoś Kazimierz, „Dom pod Lutnią”
233. Orłoś Kazimierz, „Drewniane mosty”
234. Orłoś Kazimierz, „Opowieść mazurska”
235. Orłoś Kazimierz, „Wspomnienia rodzinne”
236. Ostaszewski Robert, „Dola idola i inne bajki z raju konsumenta”
237. Orwid Maria, „Przeżyć… I co dalej?”
238. Orwid Maria „Trauma”
239. Paczkowski Andrzej, „Droga do mniejszego zła”
240. Penderecki Krzysztof, „Pendereccy. Saga rodzinna”
241. Pankiewicz Tadeusz, „Apteka w getcie krakowskim”
242. Peiper Tadeusz, „Wśród ludzi na scenach”
243. Pepłoński Andrzej, „Wojna o tajemnice. W tajnej służbie Drugiej
Rzeczpospolitej 1918–1944”
244. Petelicki Sławomir, Michał Komar, „GROM: Siła i honor”
245. Pilch Jerzy, „Bezpowrotnie utracona leworęczność”
246. Pilch Jerzy, „Rozpacz z powodu utraty furmanki”
247. Pilch Jerzy, „Spis cudzołożnic”
248. Pilch Jerzy, „Tezy o głupocie, piciu i umieraniu”
249. Pilch Jerzy, „Tysiąc spokojnych miast”
250. Pilch Jerzy, „Upadek człowieka pod Dworcem Centralnym”
251. Pilch Jerzy, „Wyznania twórcy pokątnej literatury erotycznej”
252. Pilot Marian, „Osobnik”
253. Pilot Marian, „Pantałyk”
254. Pilot Marian, „Pióropusz”
255. Podraza-Kwiatkowska Maria, „Wolność i transcendencja”
256. Porębski Mieczysław, „Krytycy i sztuka”
257. Porębski Mieczysław, „Nowosielski”
258. Porębski Mieczysław, „Polskość jako sytuacja”
259. Porębski Mieczysław, „Spotkanie z Ablem”
260. Porębski Mieczysław, „Wakacje Sinobrodego”
261. Polkowski Jan, „Elegie z Tymowskich Gór”
262. Protasiuk Michał, „Święto rewolucji”
263. Praca Zbiorowa, „Kalendarium dziejów Polski”
264. Pszoniak Wojciech, Komar Michał, „Rozmowy”
265. Purchla Jacek, „Przewodnik po architekturze Krakowa”
266. Pyrkosz Witold, Grużewska Anna, Komendołowicz Iza,
„Podwójnieurodzony”
267. Rogowski Sławomir, „Zima stulecia”
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269.
270.
271.
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274.
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126
Rolicz-Lieder Wacław, „Wybór poezji”
Romanowski Wiesław, „Śmierć we Lwowie”
Romanowski Wiesław, „Ukraina. Przystanek wolność”
Ronikier Adam, „Pamiętniki”
Ronikier Joanna, „Piotr”
Różewicz Tadeusz, „Duszyczka”
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”
Sowa Andrzej Leon, „Historia polityczna Polski 1944–1991”
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”
Strzałka Jan, „O psach, kotach i aniołach”
Strzałka Jan, Sporniak Artur, „Autobiografia – rozmowy z ojcem
Badenim”
Stuhr Jerzy, „Tak sobie myślę”
Sumińska Dorota, „Autobiografia na czterech łapach”
Sumińska Dorota, „Jak jeż Jerzy został ojcem”
Sumińska Dorota, Krzywicka Dorota, „Jak żyć w zgodzie z większymi
i mniejszymi domownikami. Rozmawia Irena A. Stanislawska”
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, „Zmierzchy i poranki”
Szlosarek Artur, „Wiersze powtórzone”
Sztaudynger Jan, Sztaudynger‑Kaliszewiczowi Anna, „Chwalipięta,
czyli rozmowy z Tatą”
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359.
360.
Sztaudynger Jan, „Piórka”
Sztaudynger Jan, „Puch ostu”
Sztaudynger Jan, „Szczęście z datą wczorajszą”
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”
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”
Tomaszewska Anna, „Wiersze do czytania”
Tomaszewski Mieczysław, „Fryderyk Chopin i George Sand”
Twardoch Szczepan, „Chłopcy” (except French rights)
Twardowski Jan, „Abecadło ks. Jana Twardowskiego”
Twardowski Jan, „Autobiografia”, opr. A. Iwanowska
Twardowski Jan, „Elementarz księdza Twardowskiego dla
najmłodszego, średniaka i starszego”, opr. A. Iwanowska
Walas Teresa, „Zrozumieć swój czas”
Wałęsa Danuta, „Marzenia i tajemnice”
Waniek Henryk, „Sprawa Newtona”
Wencel Wojciech, „Ziemia Święta”
Winklowa Barbara, „Wanda i Narcyza”
Wiśniewski Janusz, „Czy mężczyźni są światu potrzebni”
Wiśniewski Janusz L. „Intymna Teoria Względności”
Wiśniewski Janusz, „Molekuły emocji”
Wiśniewski Janusz, „Sceny z życia za ścianą”
Wiśniewski Janusz, „Ukrwienia”
Włodek Ludwika, „Pra”
Woydyłło Ewa, „Buty szczęścia”
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”
361. Wyka Kazmierz, „Wśród poetów”
362. Wysocki Radek, „Human Tuman”
363. Zając Andrzej, „Elementarz świętego Franciszka dla wszystkich,
którzy mieszkają na całym świecie”
364. Zaleski Marek, „Zamiast. O twórczości Czesława Miłosza”
365. Zblewski Zbigniew „Wolność i Niezawisłość”
366. Zechenter-Spławińska Elżbieta, „Pod gwiaździstym niebem”
367. Zettinger Piotr, „Nietutejszy”
368. Ziemny Aleksander, „Późne sonety”
369. Zimmerer Katarzyna, „Zamordowany świat. Losy Żydów w Krakowie
1939–1945”
370. Zimmerer Katarzyna, Orwid Maria, „Nie wszystko opowiem”
371. Zoll Andrzej, „Saga rodzinna”
372. Żabińska Antonina, Borsunio” (with prior consent of the Estate”
373. Żabińska Antonina, „Dżolly i Ska” (with prior consent of the Estate)
374. Żabińska Antonina, „Ludzie i zwierzęta” (with prior consent of the
Estate)
375. Żabińska Antonina, „Rysice” (with prior consent of the Estate)
376. Życiński Józef, „Elementarz księdza Życińskiego dla biskupa
i świeckiego”
377. Życiński Józef, „Odyseusz czy playboy? Życiowa odyseja człowieka”
378. Życiński Józef, „Wiara wątpiących”
128