Robert L. McLaughlin

Tadeusz Konwicki

A novel of savage satirical humour. A failed Polish author expects and looks forward to death and courts his demise ultimatedly in self-immolation.

A Novel

A Minor Apocalypse

Mała apokalipsa

The Polish Complex takes place on Christmas Eve, from early morning until late in the evening, as a line of people (including the narrator, whose name is Konwicki) stand and wait in front of a jewelry store in Warsaw. Through the narrator we are told of what happens among those standing in line outside this store, what happens as the narrator's mind thinks and rants about the current state of Poland, and what happens as he imagines the failed Polish rebellion of 1863. The novel's form allows Konwicki (both character and author) to roam around and through Poland's past and present, and to range freely through whatever comes to his attention. By turns comic, lyrical, despairing, and liberating, The Polish Complex stands as one of the most important novels to have come out of Poland since World War II.

The Polish Complex

Zorze Wieczorne

Amid warnings of the earth's end, Peter encounters the Anthropos-Specter-Beast and travels with the Investigator Dog on mysterious trips into the Universe.

Vargmonstret

Kompleks polski

Barbara Skrzypińska

Kronika wypadków miłosnych

Zwierzoczłekoupiór

Wniebowstapienie

Rojsty

Czytadło

Rzeka podziemna, podziemne ptaki

Dziura w niebie

W pośpiechu

Pamflet na siebie

Nic albo nic

Ostatni dzień lata

A Dreambook for Our Time (Writers from the other Europe)

kompleks polski

Kalendarz i klepsydra

"As in his novel The Polish Complex, Konwicki's A Minor Apocalypse stars a narrator and character named Konwicki, who has been asked to set himself on fire that evening in front of the Communist Party headquarters in Warsaw in an act of protest. He accepts the commission, but without any clear idea of whether he will actually go through with the self-immolation. He spends the rest of the day wandering the streets of Warsaw, being tortured by the secret police and falling in love. Both himself and Everyman, the character-author experiences the effects of ideologies and bureaucracies gone insane with, as always in history, the individual struggling for survival rather than offering himself up on the pyre of the greater good. Brilliantly translated by Richard Lourie, A Minor Apocalypse is one of the most important novels to emerge from Poland in the last twenty five years."--Goodreads

Tadeusz Konwicki

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