Andrzej Szczypiorski (Polish pronunciation: [ande tprski]; February 3, 1928 ? May 16, 2000) was a Polish novelist and politician; member of the Polish legislature, Solidarity activist interned during the military crackdown of 1981. He was a secret police agent in the 1950s."--Wikipedia.
Kamil, a Warsaw sociologist, is summoned to Geneva to participate in an oral history project about the collapse of Eastern European communism and resolves to tell his own story through a gallery of portraits of the many women he has loved. These reminiscences emerge against the broader canvas of circumstances and events that have shaped the past sixty years of Poland’s turbulent, tragic history. Soon he finds himself inexorably drawn to his interrogator from the “free” world; the chronicler of his life, the keeper of his secrets, and his heart’s last hope for redemptive love. Self-Portrait with Woman is at once a haunting and lyrical portrait of a man, of a country, and of the twilight years of an era.
Andrzej Szczypiorski is one of the major figures in world literature. In The Shadow Catcher, he tells the story of a boy who comes of age as the world around him begins to fall apart. At fifteen, Krzys is the adored and sheltered son of a wealthy Polish family; it is the moment just before World War II, which will forever change their lives, but Krzys is only partly aware of what is happening around him. He lives in a world shrouded in silent cries and fleeting whispers — here his awakening into manhood is accompanied by a sense of imminent doom. The Shadow Catcher is a richly evocative, heartbreaking novel about the loss of innocence and the vanishing of the old world.
At the core of this novel is the true fifteenth-century tragedy of, first, plague and hunger and, later, the brutal persecution of Jews and witches in the small French town of Arras. A Mass for Arras explores the personal and political consequences of fear, fanaticism, and fascism in the story of Jan, a young member of the intelligentsia. Arrogantly pious and full of revolutionary zeal, Jan wholeheartedly participates in the torments inflicted on the "outsiders" in the name of moral and political righteousness. Yet when faced with escalating violence and, ultimately, his own downfall, he must choose between sincere commitment to the isolated village that adopted him and horror at a society gone mad. A Mass for Arras addresses themes of freedom and responsibility, individualism and conformity, and memory and loss. It is a moving account of a young man's coming-of-age in a time of disease and death, a profound political allegory of life in an emergent totalitarian state, a chilling indictment of government-sponsored repression and societal complicity, and a cautionary tale about the tendency of history to repeat itself, whether in fifteenth-century France, postwar Poland, or somewhere still closer to our own time and place.
Reissued with an introduction by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a stunning and disquieting novel of heroism and cowardice A masterful novel that was a huge bestseller in Europe, The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman is a testament to the power of literature. Now with an introduction by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who named it her “favorite book no one else has heard of” in the New York Times, the novel follows Irma Seidenman, a young Jewish widow in Nazi-occupied Warsaw in 1943, who possesses two attributes that can spell the difference between life and death: blue eyes and blond hair. With these features, and a set of false papers, she slips out of the ghetto, passing as the wife of a Polish officer, until one day an informer spots her on the street and drags her off to the Gestapo. At times a dark lament, at others a sly and sardonic thriller, The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman is the story of the thirty-six hours that follow Irma's arrest and the events that lead to her dramatic rescue as the last of Warsaw’s Jews are about to meet their deaths in the burning ghetto.
»›Selbstportrait mit Frau‹ stellt die Unfähigkeit zu einer wahren, tiefen Liebe zwischen Mann und Frau dar. Auf einer anderen Textebene versuche ich aber eine viel allgemeinere Überlegung mitzuteilen, nämlich die, daß die Unfähigkeit zu lieben ein Charakteristikum unserer Zeit ist, ganz unabhängig davon, ob jemand in der vollkommensten Demokratie oder im schlimmsten Totalitarismus lebt.« -- Andrzej Szczypiorski
At the core of this novel is the true fifteenth-century tragedy of, first, plague and hunger and, later, the brutal persecution of Jews and witches in the small French town of Arras. A Mass for Arras explores the personal and political consequences of fear, fanaticism, and fascism in the story of Jan, a young member of the intelligentsia. Arrogantly pious and full of revolutionary zeal, Jan wholeheartedly participates in the torments inflicted on the "outsiders" in the name of moral and political righteousness. Yet when faced with escalating violence and, ultimately, his own downfall, he must choose between sincere commitment to the isolated village that adopted him and horror at a society gone mad. A Mass for Arras addresses themes of freedom and responsibility, individualism and conformity, and memory and loss. It is a moving account of a young man's coming-of-age in a time of disease and death, a profound political allegory of life in an emergent totalitarian state, a chilling indictment of government-sponsored repression and societal complicity, and a cautionary tale about the tendency of history to repeat itself, whether in fifteenth-century France, postwar Poland, or somewhere still closer to our own time and place.
Reissued with an introduction by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a stunning and disquieting novel of heroism and cowardice A masterful novel that was a huge bestseller in Europe, The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman is a testament to the power of literature. Now with an introduction by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who named it her “favorite book no one else has heard of” in the New York Times, the novel follows Irma Seidenman, a young Jewish widow in Nazi-occupied Warsaw in 1943, who possesses two attributes that can spell the difference between life and death: blue eyes and blond hair. With these features, and a set of false papers, she slips out of the ghetto, passing as the wife of a Polish officer, until one day an informer spots her on the street and drags her off to the Gestapo. At times a dark lament, at others a sly and sardonic thriller, The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman is the story of the thirty-six hours that follow Irma's arrest and the events that lead to her dramatic rescue as the last of Warsaw’s Jews are about to meet their deaths in the burning ghetto.
Kamil, a Warsaw sociologist, is summoned to Geneva to participate in an oral history project about the collapse of Eastern European communism and resolves to tell his own story through a gallery of portraits of the many women he has loved. These reminiscences emerge against the broader canvas of circumstances and events that have shaped the past sixty years of Poland’s turbulent, tragic history. Soon he finds himself inexorably drawn to his interrogator from the “free” world; the chronicler of his life, the keeper of his secrets, and his heart’s last hope for redemptive love. Self-Portrait with Woman is at once a haunting and lyrical portrait of a man, of a country, and of the twilight years of an era.
Andrzej Szczypiorski is one of the major figures in world literature. In The Shadow Catcher, he tells the story of a boy who comes of age as the world around him begins to fall apart. At fifteen, Krzys is the adored and sheltered son of a wealthy Polish family; it is the moment just before World War II, which will forever change their lives, but Krzys is only partly aware of what is happening around him. He lives in a world shrouded in silent cries and fleeting whispers — here his awakening into manhood is accompanied by a sense of imminent doom. The Shadow Catcher is a richly evocative, heartbreaking novel about the loss of innocence and the vanishing of the old world.
Using extensive interviews, including discussions with heads of state and church, and original research in Kenya, Mexico and Poland, Andrzej Kulczycki examines how cultural history, women's movements, the Catholic Church and transnational influences have shaped abortion policies in those nations and beyond.
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