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Leopold Tyrmand, a Polish Jew who survived World War II by working in Germany under a false identity, would go on to live and write under Poland’s Communist regime for twenty years before emigrating to the West, where he continued to express his deeply felt anti-Communist views. Diary 1954—written after the independent weekly paper that employed him was closed for refusing to mourn Stalin’s death—is an account of daily life in Communist Poland. Like Czesław Miłosz, Václav Havel, and other dissidents who described the absurdities of Soviet-backed regimes, Tyrmand exposes the lies—big and small—that the regimes employed to stay in power. Witty and insightful, Tyrmand’s diary is the chronicle of a man who uses seemingly minor modes of resistance—as a provocative journalist, a Warsaw intellectual, the "spiritual father" of Polish hipsters, and a promoter of jazz in Poland—to maintain his freedom of thought.
A crime novel and a cobblestone romance at the same time, and at the same time a colorful depiction of the life and customs of post-war Warsaw. The title character, Zły, is a lonely romantic hero who fights to protect the aggrieved against the criminal underworld emerging from the ruins of the city.
A MASTERPIECE IN SUSPENSE FROM POLISH DISSIDENT JAKUB ZULCZYK From the bestselling author of the book behind the HBO Europe show Blinded by the Lights comes a brand-new claustrophobic mystery thriller that’s taking Europe by storm. Agnieszka and her flatmates are trapped in her apartment block in Central Krakow. All windows and doors are sealed, phone lines are down and the Internet is off. Cut off from the world, they find themselves in a strange game played by the mysterious ‘THEY’. Paranoia thickens and tension builds as the chilling and gruesome endgame moves closer. ‘Big brother meets Stephen King in this chilling novel that firmly delivers with a satisfying level of unease.’ ...
This study explores the representation of international migration on screen and how it has gained prominence and salience in European filmmaking over the past 100 years. Using Polish migration as a key example due to its long-standing cultural resonance across the continent, this book moves beyond a director-oriented approach and beyond the dominant focus on postcolonial migrant cinemas. It succeeds in being both transnational and longitudinal by including a diverse corpus of more than 150 films from some twenty different countries, of which Roman Polański’s The Tenant, Jean-Luc Godard’s Passion and Krzysztof Kieślowski’s Trois couleurs: Blanc are the best-known examples. Engaging wi...
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A richly illustrated, comprehensive study of fashion under socialism, from state-sponsored prototypes to unofficial imitations of Paris fashion. The idea of fashion under socialism conjures up images of babushka headscarves and black market blue jeans. And yet, as Djurdja Bartlett shows in this groundbreaking book, the socialist East had an intimate relationship with fashion. Official antagonism—which cast fashion as frivolous and anti-revolutionary—eventually gave way to grudging acceptance and creeping consumerism. Bartlett outlines three phases in socialist fashion, and illustrates them with abundant images from magazines of the period: postrevolutionary utopian dress, official state-...
Living in Translation: Polish Writers in America discusses the interaction of Polish and American culture, the transfer of the Central European experience abroad and the acculturation of major representatives of Polish literature to the United States. Contributions written by American specialists in Polish Studies tell the story of contemporary Polish expatriates who recently lived or are currently living in the U.S. These authors include directors/screen writers Roman Polanski and Agnieszka Holland, the Nobel Prize laureate poet Czeslaw Milosz, theatre critic Jan Kott, prose writer Jerzy Kosinski, essayist Eva Hoffman, and poet/translator Stanislaw Baranczak. Living in Translation presents these and other writers in terms of the duality of their profiles resulting from their engagement in two different cultures. It documents problems encountered by those who became expatriates in response to a totalitarian system they had left behind. And it revises and updates the image of the Polish exile authors, refocusing it along the lines of culture transfer, border straddling, and benefits resulting from a transcultural existence.
This is the first monographic study devoted to S l awomir Mro z ek, the most prominent contemporary Polish dramatist. It centers on Mrozek's development as a playwright, shown through the analysis of his complete dramas. Also discussed is Mro z ek's experience as a journalist and theatre critic, satirist and short story writer, author of cartoons and movie scenarios. The monograph spans Mrozek's beginnings as the Eastern European representative of the Theatre of the Absurd and his expatriate existence during which he transcends the absurdist model. Mrozek's return to Poland in 1996 reestablishes him as a major literary figures on the contemporary Polish scene. His continuous presence in Western and Eastern European theatres testifies to the broad appeal of his plays. The presentation of Mrozek's entire artistic profile is supplemented by information on the reception of his writings in Poland and abroad, including the most important performances of his plays. The volume also provides a chronology of Mrozek's life and works, a complete listing of primary texts in Polish, English and German, a list of theatrical premieres, and a bibliography of secondary sources.
Part of the "Topographics" series, David Crowley's study presents a cultural and architectural history of post-war Warsaw.