Pawel, a young businessman in debt to loan sharks, wakes up one April morning in a sea of debris, broken glass, ripped upholstery, and clothes spilling out of the wardrobe. He turns to two friends for help: Bolek, a former coal miner, now a drug dealer who lives in tasteless luxury; and Jacek, an addict, who is himself on the run through Warsaw, a washed-out city, a hostile landscape of apartment blocks, railroad stations, wild gardens, factories, and suburban wastelands.In this novel Andrzej Stasiuk portrays a generation of Poles, freed from outdated ideologies but left feeling adrift and disconnected from family, neighbors, and friends. At once existential crime fiction and a work of art, Nine establishes Stasiuk as a major voice in European literature.
Journey through Poland, Ukraine, Slovenia, and other places neglected by tourists, with “an accomplished stylist with an eye for telling detail” (Irvine Welsh). Andrzej Stasiuk is a restless and indefatigable traveler. By car, train, bus, and ferry, he goes from his native Poland to Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Albania, Moldova, and Ukraine—to small towns and villages with strangely evocative names. “The heart of my Europe,” he tells us, “beats in Sokolów Podlaski and in Huși. It does not beat in Vienna.” In Comrat, a funeral procession moves slowly down the main street, the open coffin on a pickup truck, an old woman dressed in black brushing away the flies above the face of the deceased. In Soroca, he locates a baroque-Byzantine-Tatar-Turkish encampment, to meet Gypsies. And all the way to Babadag, between the Baltic Coast and the Black Sea, Stasiuk indulges his curiosity and his love for the forgotten places and people of Europe. “There isn’t quite a name for the region that holds the Polish writer Andrzej Stasiuk in thrall. The general drift is from ‘the land of King Ubu to the land of Count Dracula’, Poland to Romania. . . . Its nucleus is the landlocked centre of Central Europe; its protoplasm spreads like an amoeba through the Balkans. It cannot be convincingly mapped. . . . As travel writing, this is unconventional, but as literature profoundly authentic.” —The Independent (UK) “A mesmerizing, not-to-be-missed trek through a little-visited region of the world.” —Kirkus Reviews “A eulogy for the old Europe, the Europe both in and out of time, the Europe now lost in the folds of the map.” —The Guardian (UK)
At several points in the haunting Dukla, Andrzej Stasiuk claims that what he is trying to do is "write a book about light." The result is a beautiful, lyrical series of evocations of a very specific locale at different times of the year, in different kinds of weather, and with different human landscapes. Dukla, in fact, is a real place: a small resort town not far from where Stasiuk now lives. Taking an usual form—a short essay, a novella, and then a series of brief portraits of local people or events—this book, though bordering on the metaphysical, the mystical, even the supernatural, never loses sight of the particular time, and above all place, in which it is rooted. Andrzej Stasiuk is one of the leading writers of Poland's younger generation, and is currently one of the most popular Polish novelists in English translation.
«Siempre quise escribir un libro sobre la luz. No soy capaz de encontrar nada que recuerde más a la eternidad.» En esa búsqueda, la voz suave y certera del narrador nos acerca a Dukla, el pueblo que le vio crecer y que permanece en su memoria como un elemento esencial, imperecedero en el tiempo. De su recuerdo fluye un hálito poético que explora y aviva el mundo de los sentidos a través de la descripción y reflexión sobre su gente, sus costumbres y el paisaje que lo circunda. Con “El mundo detrás de Dukla”, Stasiuk fue galardonado con el premio al mejor prosista polaco en 1999, una obra que explora al máximo la posibilidades del lenguaje y acerca al lector a un mundo extremadamente delicado y próximo.
A boy's coming of age in Poland on the eve of World War II. He is Krzys, the son of a wealthy family and as he vacations in a country manor of friends he attempts a romance with their niece. An atmosphere of doom hangs over the place, the war about to destroy the class to which the protagonists belong. By the author of A Mass for Arras.
At several points in the haunting Dukla, Andrzej Stasiuk claims that what he is trying to do is "write a book about light." The result is a beautiful, lyrical series of evocations of a very specific locale at different times of the year, in different kinds of weather, and with different human landscapes. Dukla, in fact, is a real place: a small resort town not far from where Stasiuk now lives. Taking an usual form—a short essay, a novella, and then a series of brief portraits of local people or events—this book, though bordering on the metaphysical, the mystical, even the supernatural, never loses sight of the particular time, and above all place, in which it is rooted. Andrzej Stasiuk is one of the leading writers of Poland's younger generation, and is currently one of the most popular Polish novelists in English translation.
Journey through Poland, Ukraine, Slovenia, and other places neglected by tourists, with “an accomplished stylist with an eye for telling detail” (Irvine Welsh). Andrzej Stasiuk is a restless and indefatigable traveler. By car, train, bus, and ferry, he goes from his native Poland to Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Albania, Moldova, and Ukraine—to small towns and villages with strangely evocative names. “The heart of my Europe,” he tells us, “beats in Sokolów Podlaski and in Huși. It does not beat in Vienna.” In Comrat, a funeral procession moves slowly down the main street, the open coffin on a pickup truck, an old woman dressed in black brushing away the flies above the face of the deceased. In Soroca, he locates a baroque-Byzantine-Tatar-Turkish encampment, to meet Gypsies. And all the way to Babadag, between the Baltic Coast and the Black Sea, Stasiuk indulges his curiosity and his love for the forgotten places and people of Europe. “There isn’t quite a name for the region that holds the Polish writer Andrzej Stasiuk in thrall. The general drift is from ‘the land of King Ubu to the land of Count Dracula’, Poland to Romania. . . . Its nucleus is the landlocked centre of Central Europe; its protoplasm spreads like an amoeba through the Balkans. It cannot be convincingly mapped. . . . As travel writing, this is unconventional, but as literature profoundly authentic.” —The Independent (UK) “A mesmerizing, not-to-be-missed trek through a little-visited region of the world.” —Kirkus Reviews “A eulogy for the old Europe, the Europe both in and out of time, the Europe now lost in the folds of the map.” —The Guardian (UK)
Pawel, a young businessman in debt to loan sharks, wakes up one April morning in a sea of debris, broken glass, ripped upholstery, and clothes spilling out of the wardrobe. He turns to two friends for help: Bolek, a former coal miner, now a drug dealer who lives in tasteless luxury; and Jacek, an addict, who is himself on the run through Warsaw, a washed-out city, a hostile landscape of apartment blocks, railroad stations, wild gardens, factories, and suburban wastelands.In this novel Andrzej Stasiuk portrays a generation of Poles, freed from outdated ideologies but left feeling adrift and disconnected from family, neighbors, and friends. At once existential crime fiction and a work of art, Nine establishes Stasiuk as a major voice in European literature.
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