From an internationally acclaimed Czech writer comes a shrewd, humane, and poignant novel, set in Prague before the Velvet Revolution, whose perceptions about love, conscience, and betrayal cut to the
Forgotten during the Stalin years, Stanislaw Witkiewicz (1885-1939) was rediscovered in his native Poland only after the liberalization of 1956, when his works came to play a major role in freeing the
Good-bye, Samizdat offers the first collection of the best of Czechoslovakia's samizdat, underground texts from the era 1948 through 1990. Divided into three sections, the volume includes fiction, cul
To see through the eyes of essayist and dramaturge Jan Kott is to gain in knowledge not just of the theater but also of human culture. Since his Shakespeare Our Contemporary appeared in English in 196
The epic poem by the Polish poet, writer, and philosopher spans five days in 1811 and one day in 1812 when Poland ceased to exist after being divided between Prussia, Russia, and Austria.
Winner, 1997 National Book Award for PoetryWinner, 1993 PEN Book-of-the-Month Club Translation PrizePublished in 1776 and considered the first Polish novel ever written, The Adventures of Mr. Nicholas
Tadeusz Borowski's concentration camp stories were based on his own experiences surviving Auschwitz and Dachau. In spare, brutal prose he describes a world where the will to survive overrides compassi
Krystyna Pomorska (1928-1986), a noted specialist of Slavic literature and literary theory, is best known for her pioneering work in applying Roman Jakobson's theories of poetics to prose narratives.
The witness in 1948 to a baffling event labled by Catholic townspeople as a miracle and by the Communist Party as a fraud, cynical Czech Danny Smiricky finds himself drawn into an investigation of the
These fourteen science fiction stories reveal Lem’s fascination with artificial intelligence and demonstrate just how surprisingly human sentient machines can be. “Astonishing is not too
Hanta rescues books from the jaws of his compacting press and carries them home. Hrabal, whom Milan Kundera calls “our very best writer today,” celebrates the power and the indestructibility of the wr
The past thirty years have witnessed some of the most traumatic and inspiring moments in Polish history. This turbulent period has also been a time of unprecedented achievement in all forms of Polish
A six-man crew crash-lands on Eden, fourth planet from another sun. The men find a strange world that grows ever stranger, and everywhere there are images of death. The crew's attempt to communicate w
By the author of the highly acclaimed literary bestseller Dictionary of the Khazars, this is a tale of a mysterious quest that is part modern Odyssey and part crossword puzzle. It begins with the stor
These two works belong to that group of books written by one of this century's fiercest and most devoted child advocates. In the first, Korczak uses fiction to reveal the joys and sorrows of a child,
Janusz Glowacki's highly theatrical and often hilarious works concern the immigrant experience of the Eastern European in America, the struggles of the individual in a repressive state, and the manipu
A OBIE award-winning play by Europe's leading experimental playwright, thematically explores the perisistence of memory and the relationship between the living and the dead, as well as the contradicto
