Andrzej Szczypiorski

In Nazi-occupied Warsaw of 1943, Irma Seidenman, a young Jewish widow passes as the wife of a Polish officer, until an informer spots her and drags her off to the Gestapo to await her fate

The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman

Eine Messe für die Stadt Arras. Roman.

Początek

Notte, giorno e notte

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.

"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.

The View from Within

The Polish Ordeal

Tadeusz Kraśko

miesiąc w Roku Koguta : rozmowy z Andrzejem Szypiorskim

Chocholi taniec

Buffalo Bill

Początek raz jeszcze

Selv efter kz-lejre og politiske fængslinger mener polakken Kalim, at kærligheden er det væsentligste i livet. Han forelsker sig i journalisten Ruth, men vil hellere interviewes om kvinder end om politik

Autoportret z kobietą

Za murami Sodomy

Poczatek

Messe pour la ville d'Arras

"In the spring of 1458, the town of Arras was visited by the disasters of plague and hunger. In the course of a month, nearly a fifth of the citizens lost their lives. "For reasons that remain unclear, the famous Vauderie d'Arras took place in October of 1461. Jews and witches were subjected to cruel persecution; there were trials for supposed heresies, as well as an outbreak of looting and crime. It was three weeks before calm returned...". With this historical tragedy at its core, 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.

A Mass for Arras

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.

The Shadow Catcher

Summoned to Geneva to participate in an oral history project about the collapse of Eastern European communism, a Warsaw sociologist resolves to tell his story through a gallery of portraits of the many women he has loved

Andrzej Szczypiorski

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