“We went for a walk all together along a steeply falling street, pervaded by the scent of violets; uncertain whether it was the magic of the night which lay like silver on the snow or whether it was the light of dawn…”
—Bruno Schulz, from Cinnamon Shops (tr. by Jerzy Ficowski); The Street of Crocodiles, 1933
In November, we have a newly translated volume of Józef Czapski’s haunting memoirs of the Soviet Starobielsk prison camp and insightful reflections on art making, alongside Leonora Carrington’s The Hearing Trumpet, a delightful surrealist adventure set in the strangest of nursing homes.
The Polish artist, writer, and army officer Józef Czapski became a Soviet prisoner during World War II—experiences he illuminated in Lost TimeandInhuman Land, previously published by NYRB Classics. This new volume includes his memoirs of the doomed men of the Starobielsk prison camp, where he was one of just a few Polish officers to escape execution. Also included are a selection of Czapski’s essays on art, history, and literature.
Beloved by Björk, Ali Smith, and Luis Buñuel, The Hearing Trumpet is a fantastic romp starring an eccentric ninety-two-year-old woman who is institutionalized by her family. But this is no ordinary institution: the buildings are shaped like cakes and igloos, the residents must undergo bizarre religious training, and it houses an ancient, mysterious magic. This feminist fable by the treasured surrealist painter remains one of the most original and inspirational of all fantastic novels.
polish dark academia story where a group of students decides to recreate dziady according to mickiewicz’s play for laughs but they end up accidentally summoning actual ghosts and, amongst them, the one of said poet himself
Imagine, polish Dark Academia story in which plot revolves around two groups of pretensious polish literature students and their rivalry who was better poet, Mickiewicz or Słowacki and action is set on Jagiellonian University.
