The Penguin Book of Polish Short Stories

Witty, surprising and sparkling, this anthology is an essential exploration of Polish literature. Its forty superb stories run the length of the literal and imaginative creation of Poland, from 1918 (when Poland regained its independence after 123 years of colonization by the neighbouring empires) to the present. The stories include 'Pilgrimage to Warsaw', by the classic twentieth-century writer Maria Dabrowska (1889-1965), based on her experience of returning from the provinces to the destroyed capital when the war ended in 1945; and 'In the Shadow of Brooklyn' by Stanislaw Dygat (1914-78), the comical tale of a young man's envy of what he imagines to be his father's success with women. At the contemporary end, it includes a story by Nobel Prize winner Olga Tokarczuk (1962), 'The Green Children', a historical story set in 1656, narrated by a Scottish doctor who, as the Polish king's physician, travels about the wilds of Poland and encounters two feral children. Curated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones, this anthology is a refreshing and glorious new collection of the best in Polish literature.