9 ms·

Radical Polish books to add to your reading list

91 points by axiomdata316 5y ago

cafard 5y ago
Our neighborhood book club read Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, and I was not impressed.
- ziggus 5y ago
  I'll inform the news media immediately.
- version_five 5y ago
  I read part of this - if I remember correctly it was reviewed in the Economist, and anyway they used to have lots of good recommendations for translated fiction. I couldn't get into it either, but I think it's the kind of book you need to read a lot of before it becomes interesting. I may try again just because this has jogged my memory. In the afterward of "The Name of the Rose", Umberto Eco talks about how he wanted to filter for a certain kind of reader with whom the story would resonate, and does so by making the first hundred pages very difficult to read. Overall, the book is worth it in that case (although he might be joking). So sometimes its worth trying to press onward, even when the material is not enjoyable immediately.
  - handrous 5y ago
    Huh. I didn't find the first hundred pages of The Name of the Roes notably boring or difficult or anything. I do think literature generally selects against readers who aren't prepared for it. Like how it's hard to get into a new genre of music, especially the first time you start trying to branch out in that way. Don't understand its idioms, its musical language, and haven't trained your ear for it, et c. Like trying to go from a childhood of listening to only radio top-40s to appreciating classical music or jazz or something. It's jarring and off-putting at first, and may even seem silly or bad.
- fishnchips 5y ago
  Towards the end of his life Stanisław Lem was asked about Tokarczuk (the recent Polish Nobel prize winner) and said the following: "Tokarczuk offended my rationality to such an extent that I wanted to write a polemic, but I decided that it wasn't worth it, because it would mean I have to read her entire book."
  - briga 5y ago
    Funny how famous writers often seem to be each other’s harshest critics. Was this in reference to any particular book of hers? I read Drive Your Plow and it seemed like fairly standard mystery noir fiction, certainly nothing to write a polemic about
  - mathteddybear 5y ago
    He said that about a non-fiction book by her, an essay about a school reading realist Polish novel from XIX century. In Poland, being a good fiction writer is correlated with being a good literary critic as much as in any other country. DYPOtBotD on the other hand is pretty much a whodunit, as such there is a certain threshold to impress book club readers, I guess
  - zukzuk 5y ago
    Flights is a great piece of writing though. Definitely not for the Lem crowd, but I guess there are weirdos like myself who like both.
- kozikow 5y ago
  Hunting in Poland is not like in the USA, where it is an outdoor activity generally accepted by most of population. Many if not most people would want to totally outlaw it. When you ask them if they are aware about boar damages to crops or do they think if the hunted meat is less cruel than farmed meat, they are totally unaware in how horrible conditions some of farmed animals are raised.
  - Tade0 5y ago
    Regarding boars hunters are currently somewhat counter-productive, given that they are known to feed the animals.
    - Ratalala 5y ago
      And breed them.
    - p_l 5y ago
      They also don't follow necessary sanitation guidelines, necessary due to African Swine Fever rampaging through Poland - which results in hunts increasing danger of ASF instead of reducing it.
  - p_l 5y ago
    As someone who lived for years with year-long problems with boars. Hunters do jack shit about them. When we had concrete overpopulation problems, it wasn't hunters who dealt with it, it was organized by forest management officials as dedicated culling action, methodical and directed. The reason people are annoyed by "hunters" is that they are out of control, often drunk on the hunt, create danger to other people (lots and lots of cases with people killed by hunters, including causing danger in build up communities), and if you try to stop them, expect to be intimidated with guns and to see your pets shot. Then you have hunting lobby in current govt get itself legal right to organize hunt on your land without you allowing it (and again, try to stop the mafia...) So, yeah, zero sympathy for hunting as it is done now.
cl42 5y ago
Stanislaw Lem (one of his books is on the list) is a fantastic author. If you are a logophile, I highly recommend reading "The Futurological Congress". Polish is a language where you can conjugate everything into something else (nouns into verbs, verbs into nouns, nice words into curse words), and Lem wrote a book that plays off of this linguistic peculiarity in a way that is hilarious. ... what's even MORE beautiful is the translator had to take that and translate it into similar wordplay in English. Huge respect for the translators doing this work.
- yakubin 5y ago
  Paradoxically, I've never brought myself to like Lem's science-fiction books, but enjoyed his two non-science-fiction books (one of them even non-fiction): 1. Hospital of the Transfiguration: <https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/251632.Hospital_of_the_Transfiguration https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/251632.Hospital_of_the_T...> 2. Highcastle: A Remembrance: <https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/251630.Highcastle https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/251630.Highcastle>
  - Sosh101 5y ago
    Have you tried 'Fiasco'? I've reread that a couple of times.
    - scandox 5y ago
      A great book.
  - gambiting 5y ago
    So Hospital of Transfiguration is an absolutely incredible - if haunting - book, and as much as I love Lem's Sci-Fi, that one is a masterpiece as well. Also I have no idea if they are even available in English, but the two follow ups to it, "Wśród umarłych"(Among the dead) and "Powrót"(Return) are also worth reading, even though Lem never agreed to republish them, as he only agreed to write them to get around the communist censorship. I think from the perspective of time it's easy to see throught the pages written clearly to appease the communist censors, and end up with a worthy follow up to the first book.
maxk42 5y ago
Why is this on HN?
- dang 5y ago
  Unexpected things like this are welcome on HN when they're interesting and not closely correlated with other stuff that appears here (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=diffs%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...). https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - didymospl 5y ago
    Hi Dang, I think this is the best thread to ask you about that: didn't you have a quote from Bruno Schultz in your 'about' section some time ago? How did you come across him?
    - dang 5y ago
      It was most likely from the great and idiosyncratic Martin Seymour Smith. I used to spend hours combing through his masterpiece, which was an encyclopedia of 20th century literature which he produced single-handedly. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=%22martin%20seymour%20smith%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
      - didymospl 5y ago
        Thanks, I'll add "The Guide to Modern World Literature" to my reading list (and I guess it will transitively keep this list filled for the next decade or so)
Kharvok 5y ago
These aren't the interesting kind of radical. Just feminist books filled with power/struggle fantasies.
- tszymczyszyn 5y ago
  Ugh, maybe some of them are. But Kapuścinski and Lem for sure are not.
  - selimthegrim 5y ago
    What do people think in Poland about the truth value of what Kapuścinski wrote?
- groby_b 5y ago
  Maybe they're radical in that they don't care about you, and what you think books should be about. But let's turn this around - have you actually read any of them, or are you just saying "meh, feminism, not my thing" and discarding them out of hand? Based on the ones I've read, both "Dromedaries" and "His Masters Voice" are very much radical, especially if you read them in their historical context. You can certainly argue that ultimately, the topics and stories are a bit more familiar nowadays than they were then, but they're still quite thought-provoking. (If you read one of those two, I'd go with "Dromedaries". Lem is many things, but certainly not an easy read)
  - themanmaran 5y ago
    I think the url ("/queer-feminist-sci-fi-books-polish-literature") is a more accurate description than "Radical Polish books to add to your reading list." But Stanisław Lem doesn't quite fit.
  - kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
    There are a zillion books out there, most of them crap. So simply "try reading them" does not really work, there have to be some good reasons to pick up a book.
nathias 5y ago
Lem was the first to elevate sci-fi to the level of proper literature, if you like sci-fi with more philosophical themes there are many, but for those who don't know him perhaps His Masters Voice, Solaris and Eden are good books to start with.
kozikow 5y ago
As a Pole, I only like Lem from this list of authors. I dislike most of Polish literature. Most of modern Polish literature tries to be edgy too hard. Older literature is too political, up to the point that they usually forget that it supposed to be entertaining besides raising political issues. That's my opinion at least. Except Scifi and Fantasy of course - Lem, Witcher. I wish we read those back in the day as part of the curriculum.
KptMarchewa 5y ago
Unfortunately, works of one of my favorite writers - and ones that people on HN would appreciate - aren't translated into English. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janusz_Zajdel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janusz_Zajdel
- Tade0 5y ago
  To quote another author whose work was also never translated(Jarosław Grzędowicz): "Native English speakers generally don't accept translations done by anyone who's not a native English speaker as well. Unfortunately there are very few native English speakers who are at the same time experts in Polish, and it so happens that all four of them are currently busy fulfilling their careers as lumberjacks".
  - gweinberg 5y ago
    Given the rather large number of Polish Americans, I would think finding people who are fluent in English and Polish wouldn't be all that hard.
    - scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
      It takes the cultural back-and-forth for that work out, along with a few other factors. Most Polonia (as we call Polish-Americans) are firmly set in the US and usually don’t get higher education in Poland. This means that while they understand the language, they don’t really “get” the temperament and are losing a grip on the culture. I say this from personal experience and upbringing. Polonia also tend to be working-class. As a dilettante/temp Polish/English translator I would also say it really requires a very specific mix of values and circumstances. To pull off a quality translation of a piece of literature one has to put almost as much energy into it as it takes to write to begin with. It’s a huge undertaking, with not that big a payoff and it requires specific values, commitment and education. I’m surprised such people exist, really.
    - Tade0 5y ago
      To add to the sibling comment: I was born abroad myself and I often feel that I lack cultural context. I also have friends and relatives who grew up abroad and while their Polish is perfect in terms of grammar and pronunciation, they use almost no idioms.
disabled 5y ago
“This Way For the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen” by Tadeusz Borowski is a must read. See: https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2021/09/12/the-world-of-tadeusz-borowskis-auschwitz/ https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2021/09/12/the-world-of-tadeus... Borowski was a political dissident imprisoned at Auschwitz, and he explained how anyone can normalize such an experience. A new book with Tadeusz’s work has recently been published and translated into English called “Here in Our Auschwitz and Other Stories”. You can view details here but it is also available on Amazon: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300116908/here-our-auschwitz-and-other-stories https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300116908/here-our-ausch...
kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
“feminist eco-thriller” is pretty much the very last thing I want to read these days.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
aaron695 5y ago
With ~195 countries unless you're ultra interested in the Polish why would you read these? Why not read The Witcher? I assume it's popular at home and as such represents the real people. This list [1] is not great, it's a mix or English and Polish readers, but it's a start. It's also a community list, why do people still trust the opinion of one person. Especially with a book, it's not a 2 hour journey like a movie. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/2023.Best_Polish_Books https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/2023.Best_Polish_Books If this was Radical Polish books to add to your Radical reading list I guess it might work as an article on HN. Within the journals context it works once you Google it "The Calvert Journal is a guide to the contemporary culture of the New East: Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Russia and Central Asia."
te_chris 5y ago
Unlike some here I’m reading Drive Your Plow at the moment and really enjoying it. Recommend trying for yourself before taking the negative comments too seriously.
Witosso 5y ago
A Pole here, this list is not a good one. I read a plenty of polish books, here's my recommendations: - IMHO the best book of the recent Polish Nobel Prize winner (Olga Tokarczuk) is "Flights" and "Primeval and Other Times". The "Drive your plow.." is one of the worst really. It's because of its pro-ecologic and feminism topics which make it popular. - The author, that HN would definitely like is Jacek Dukaj. Not many of his books were translated, unfortunately. Look forward especially to the "Ice": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_(Dukaj_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_(Dukaj_novel) - My favourite polish fiction author is Wiesław Myśliwski: https://www.amazon.com/Stone-Upon-Wieslaw-Mysliwski-ebook/dp/B00FUZPDJ8/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=my%C5%9Bliwski&qid=1639124770&s=digital-text&sr=1-1 https://www.amazon.com/Stone-Upon-Wieslaw-Mysliwski-ebook/dp... I doubt whether you will enjoy it, his books are about dying world of polish countryside.
- Woodi 5y ago
  - The author, that HN would definitely like is Jacek Dukaj This. And my recommendation is "Black Oceans" - for years now I'm shocked why noone made movie from it... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charne_oceany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charne_oceany

91 points by axiomdata316 5y ago

cafard 5y ago

Our neighborhood book club read Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead, and I was not impressed.

ziggus 5y ago
I'll inform the news media immediately.
version_five 5y ago
I read part of this - if I remember correctly it was reviewed in the Economist, and anyway they used to have lots of good recommendations for translated fiction. I couldn't get into it either, but I think it's the kind of book you need to read a lot of before it becomes interesting. I may try again just because this has jogged my memory. In the afterward of "The Name of the Rose", Umberto Eco talks about how he wanted to filter for a certain kind of reader with whom the story would resonate, and does so by making the first hundred pages very difficult to read. Overall, the book is worth it in that case (although he might be joking). So sometimes its worth trying to press onward, even when the material is not enjoyable immediately.
- handrous 5y ago
  Huh. I didn't find the first hundred pages of The Name of the Roes notably boring or difficult or anything. I do think literature generally selects against readers who aren't prepared for it. Like how it's hard to get into a new genre of music, especially the first time you start trying to branch out in that way. Don't understand its idioms, its musical language, and haven't trained your ear for it, et c. Like trying to go from a childhood of listening to only radio top-40s to appreciating classical music or jazz or something. It's jarring and off-putting at first, and may even seem silly or bad.
fishnchips 5y ago
Towards the end of his life Stanisław Lem was asked about Tokarczuk (the recent Polish Nobel prize winner) and said the following: "Tokarczuk offended my rationality to such an extent that I wanted to write a polemic, but I decided that it wasn't worth it, because it would mean I have to read her entire book."
- briga 5y ago
  Funny how famous writers often seem to be each other’s harshest critics. Was this in reference to any particular book of hers? I read Drive Your Plow and it seemed like fairly standard mystery noir fiction, certainly nothing to write a polemic about
- mathteddybear 5y ago
  He said that about a non-fiction book by her, an essay about a school reading realist Polish novel from XIX century. In Poland, being a good fiction writer is correlated with being a good literary critic as much as in any other country. DYPOtBotD on the other hand is pretty much a whodunit, as such there is a certain threshold to impress book club readers, I guess
- zukzuk 5y ago
  Flights is a great piece of writing though. Definitely not for the Lem crowd, but I guess there are weirdos like myself who like both.
kozikow 5y ago
Hunting in Poland is not like in the USA, where it is an outdoor activity generally accepted by most of population. Many if not most people would want to totally outlaw it. When you ask them if they are aware about boar damages to crops or do they think if the hunted meat is less cruel than farmed meat, they are totally unaware in how horrible conditions some of farmed animals are raised.
- Tade0 5y ago
  Regarding boars hunters are currently somewhat counter-productive, given that they are known to feed the animals.
  - Ratalala 5y ago
    And breed them.
  - p_l 5y ago
    They also don't follow necessary sanitation guidelines, necessary due to African Swine Fever rampaging through Poland - which results in hunts increasing danger of ASF instead of reducing it.
- p_l 5y ago
  As someone who lived for years with year-long problems with boars. Hunters do jack shit about them. When we had concrete overpopulation problems, it wasn't hunters who dealt with it, it was organized by forest management officials as dedicated culling action, methodical and directed. The reason people are annoyed by "hunters" is that they are out of control, often drunk on the hunt, create danger to other people (lots and lots of cases with people killed by hunters, including causing danger in build up communities), and if you try to stop them, expect to be intimidated with guns and to see your pets shot. Then you have hunting lobby in current govt get itself legal right to organize hunt on your land without you allowing it (and again, try to stop the mafia...) So, yeah, zero sympathy for hunting as it is done now.

cl42 5y ago

Stanislaw Lem (one of his books is on the list) is a fantastic author. If you are a logophile, I highly recommend reading "The Futurological Congress". Polish is a language where you can conjugate everything into something else (nouns into verbs, verbs into nouns, nice words into curse words), and Lem wrote a book that plays off of this linguistic peculiarity in a way that is hilarious. ... what's even MORE beautiful is the translator had to take that and translate it into similar wordplay in English. Huge respect for the translators doing this work.

yakubin 5y ago
Paradoxically, I've never brought myself to like Lem's science-fiction books, but enjoyed his two non-science-fiction books (one of them even non-fiction): 1. Hospital of the Transfiguration: <https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/251632.Hospital_of_the_Transfiguration https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/251632.Hospital_of_the_T...> 2. Highcastle: A Remembrance: <https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/251630.Highcastle https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/251630.Highcastle>
- Sosh101 5y ago
  Have you tried 'Fiasco'? I've reread that a couple of times.
  - scandox 5y ago
    A great book.
- gambiting 5y ago
  So Hospital of Transfiguration is an absolutely incredible - if haunting - book, and as much as I love Lem's Sci-Fi, that one is a masterpiece as well. Also I have no idea if they are even available in English, but the two follow ups to it, "Wśród umarłych"(Among the dead) and "Powrót"(Return) are also worth reading, even though Lem never agreed to republish them, as he only agreed to write them to get around the communist censorship. I think from the perspective of time it's easy to see throught the pages written clearly to appease the communist censors, and end up with a worthy follow up to the first book.

maxk42 5y ago

Why is this on HN?

dang 5y ago
Unexpected things like this are welcome on HN when they're interesting and not closely correlated with other stuff that appears here (https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&sort=byDate&type=comment&query=diffs%20by:dang https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=false&so...). https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- didymospl 5y ago
  Hi Dang, I think this is the best thread to ask you about that: didn't you have a quote from Bruno Schultz in your 'about' section some time ago? How did you come across him?
  - dang 5y ago
    It was most likely from the great and idiosyncratic Martin Seymour Smith. I used to spend hours combing through his masterpiece, which was an encyclopedia of 20th century literature which he produced single-handedly. https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&query=%22martin%20seymour%20smith%22&sort=byDate&type=comment https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...
    - didymospl 5y ago
      Thanks, I'll add "The Guide to Modern World Literature" to my reading list (and I guess it will transitively keep this list filled for the next decade or so)

Kharvok 5y ago

These aren't the interesting kind of radical. Just feminist books filled with power/struggle fantasies.

tszymczyszyn 5y ago
Ugh, maybe some of them are. But Kapuścinski and Lem for sure are not.
- selimthegrim 5y ago
  What do people think in Poland about the truth value of what Kapuścinski wrote?
groby_b 5y ago
Maybe they're radical in that they don't care about you, and what you think books should be about. But let's turn this around - have you actually read any of them, or are you just saying "meh, feminism, not my thing" and discarding them out of hand? Based on the ones I've read, both "Dromedaries" and "His Masters Voice" are very much radical, especially if you read them in their historical context. You can certainly argue that ultimately, the topics and stories are a bit more familiar nowadays than they were then, but they're still quite thought-provoking. (If you read one of those two, I'd go with "Dromedaries". Lem is many things, but certainly not an easy read)
- themanmaran 5y ago
  I think the url ("/queer-feminist-sci-fi-books-polish-literature") is a more accurate description than "Radical Polish books to add to your reading list." But Stanisław Lem doesn't quite fit.
- kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago
  There are a zillion books out there, most of them crap. So simply "try reading them" does not really work, there have to be some good reasons to pick up a book.

nathias 5y ago

Lem was the first to elevate sci-fi to the level of proper literature, if you like sci-fi with more philosophical themes there are many, but for those who don't know him perhaps His Masters Voice, Solaris and Eden are good books to start with.

kozikow 5y ago

As a Pole, I only like Lem from this list of authors. I dislike most of Polish literature. Most of modern Polish literature tries to be edgy too hard. Older literature is too political, up to the point that they usually forget that it supposed to be entertaining besides raising political issues. That's my opinion at least. Except Scifi and Fantasy of course - Lem, Witcher. I wish we read those back in the day as part of the curriculum.

KptMarchewa 5y ago

Unfortunately, works of one of my favorite writers - and ones that people on HN would appreciate - aren't translated into English. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janusz_Zajdel https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Janusz_Zajdel

Tade0 5y ago
To quote another author whose work was also never translated(Jarosław Grzędowicz): "Native English speakers generally don't accept translations done by anyone who's not a native English speaker as well. Unfortunately there are very few native English speakers who are at the same time experts in Polish, and it so happens that all four of them are currently busy fulfilling their careers as lumberjacks".
- gweinberg 5y ago
  Given the rather large number of Polish Americans, I would think finding people who are fluent in English and Polish wouldn't be all that hard.
  - scyzoryk_xyz 5y ago
    It takes the cultural back-and-forth for that work out, along with a few other factors. Most Polonia (as we call Polish-Americans) are firmly set in the US and usually don’t get higher education in Poland. This means that while they understand the language, they don’t really “get” the temperament and are losing a grip on the culture. I say this from personal experience and upbringing. Polonia also tend to be working-class. As a dilettante/temp Polish/English translator I would also say it really requires a very specific mix of values and circumstances. To pull off a quality translation of a piece of literature one has to put almost as much energy into it as it takes to write to begin with. It’s a huge undertaking, with not that big a payoff and it requires specific values, commitment and education. I’m surprised such people exist, really.
  - Tade0 5y ago
    To add to the sibling comment: I was born abroad myself and I often feel that I lack cultural context. I also have friends and relatives who grew up abroad and while their Polish is perfect in terms of grammar and pronunciation, they use almost no idioms.

disabled 5y ago

“This Way For the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen” by Tadeusz Borowski is a must read. See: https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2021/09/12/the-world-of-tadeusz-borowskis-auschwitz/ https://www.nybooks.com/daily/2021/09/12/the-world-of-tadeus... Borowski was a political dissident imprisoned at Auschwitz, and he explained how anyone can normalize such an experience. A new book with Tadeusz’s work has recently been published and translated into English called “Here in Our Auschwitz and Other Stories”. You can view details here but it is also available on Amazon: https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300116908/here-our-auschwitz-and-other-stories https://yalebooks.yale.edu/book/9780300116908/here-our-ausch...

kkjjkgjjgg 5y ago

“feminist eco-thriller” is pretty much the very last thing I want to read these days.

deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

aaron695 5y ago

With ~195 countries unless you're ultra interested in the Polish why would you read these? Why not read The Witcher? I assume it's popular at home and as such represents the real people. This list [1] is not great, it's a mix or English and Polish readers, but it's a start. It's also a community list, why do people still trust the opinion of one person. Especially with a book, it's not a 2 hour journey like a movie. [1] https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/2023.Best_Polish_Books https://www.goodreads.com/list/show/2023.Best_Polish_Books If this was Radical Polish books to add to your Radical reading list I guess it might work as an article on HN. Within the journals context it works once you Google it "The Calvert Journal is a guide to the contemporary culture of the New East: Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Russia and Central Asia."

te_chris 5y ago

Unlike some here I’m reading Drive Your Plow at the moment and really enjoying it. Recommend trying for yourself before taking the negative comments too seriously.

Witosso 5y ago

A Pole here, this list is not a good one. I read a plenty of polish books, here's my recommendations: - IMHO the best book of the recent Polish Nobel Prize winner (Olga Tokarczuk) is "Flights" and "Primeval and Other Times". The "Drive your plow.." is one of the worst really. It's because of its pro-ecologic and feminism topics which make it popular. - The author, that HN would definitely like is Jacek Dukaj. Not many of his books were translated, unfortunately. Look forward especially to the "Ice": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_(Dukaj_novel) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ice_(Dukaj_novel) - My favourite polish fiction author is Wiesław Myśliwski: https://www.amazon.com/Stone-Upon-Wieslaw-Mysliwski-ebook/dp/B00FUZPDJ8/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=my%C5%9Bliwski&qid=1639124770&s=digital-text&sr=1-1 https://www.amazon.com/Stone-Upon-Wieslaw-Mysliwski-ebook/dp... I doubt whether you will enjoy it, his books are about dying world of polish countryside.

Woodi 5y ago
- The author, that HN would definitely like is Jacek Dukaj This. And my recommendation is "Black Oceans" - for years now I'm shocked why noone made movie from it... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charne_oceany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charne_oceany