Concrete mushrooms in the front yard, swans made out of tyres, knights and dinosaurs of nuts and bolts, religious notions and knick-knacks — what for some people is the nadir of bad taste and kitsch, constitutes for Olga Drenda fascinating material for a study on Polish ingenuity.
Concrete mushrooms in the front yard, swans made out of tyres, knights and dinosaurs of nuts and bolts, religious notions and knick-knacks — what for some people is the nadir of bad taste and kitsch, constitutes for Olga Drenda fascinating material for a study on Polish ingenuity.
Translation rights: Wydawnictwo Karakter, szczurek@karakter.pl
In homemade creations such as these, the author sees, above all, an unbounded imagination, an unfettered approach to aesthetic and religious norms, as well as a pinch of sentimentality and cleverness. Products [Wyroby] takes a fresh look at a phenomenon that some would like to root out of the public sphere, while others consider it unworthy of serious attention.
Selected samples
She climbed her first peaks in a headscarf at a time when women in the mountains were treated by climbers as an additional backpack. It was with her that female alpinism began! She gained recognition in a spectacular way. The path was considered a crossing for madmen. Especially since the tragic accident in 1929, preserved … Continue reading “Halina”
First, Marysia, a student of an exclusive private school in Warsaw’s Mokotów district, dies under the wheels of a train. Her teacher, Elżbieta, tries to find out what really happened. She starts a private investigation only soon to perish herself. But her body disappears, and the only people who have seen anything are Gniewomir, a … Continue reading “Wound”
A young girl, Regina Wieczorek, was found dead on the beach. She was nineteen years old and had no enemies. Fortunately, the culprit was quickly found. At least, that’s what the militia think. Meanwhile, one day in November, Jan Kowalski appears at the police station. He claims to have killed not only Regina but also … Continue reading “Penance”
The year is 1922. A dangerous time of breakthrough. In the Eastern Borderlands of the Republic of Poland, Bolshevik gangs sow terror, leaving behind the corpses of men and disgraced women. A ruthless secret intelligence race takes place between the Lviv-Warsaw-Free City of Gdańsk line. Lviv investigator Edward Popielski, called Łysy (“Hairless”), receives an offer … Continue reading “A Girl with Four Fingers”
This question is closely related to the next one, namely: if any goal exists, does life lead us to that goal in an orderly manner? In other words, is everything that happens to us just a set of chaotic events that, combined together, do not form a whole? To understand how the concept of providence … Continue reading “Order and Love”
The work of Józef Łobodowski (1909-1988) – a remarkable poet, prose writer, and translator, who spent most of his life in exile – is slowly being revived in Poland. Łobodowski’s brilliant three- volume novel, composed on an epic scale, concerns the fate of families and orphans unmoored by the Bolshevik Revolution and civil war and … Continue reading “Ukrainian Trilogy: Thickets, The Settlement, The Way Back”
