Polish books have been in the press this month – for cheering reasons (the announcement that Olga Tokarczuk’s >1000-page The books of Jacob will published in translation later this year) and for very worrying reasons (the ruling against the writers of Dalej jest noc, a two-volume work about the fate of Polish Jews during the war: a ruling that threatens further Holocaust research).  The UL’s copy of Dalej jest noc is at C214.c.8947-8948 and our copy of the Polish original of Tokarczuk’s epic is at C210.c.2501.

A swathe of Polish books were ordered in late 2019 and the twelve books featured here are among the resulting arrivals.  The first three are books of poetry.  The second book is a small additional collection of works by the late Nobel laureate (the last Polish literature laureate before Tokarczuk) Wisława Szymborska and the third a collection by Adam Zagajewski, who has often been tipped for the award himself.  The first, though, is the collected poetry of Zuzanna Ginczanka, a lauded Polish Jewish poet who was shot dead in Nazi custody in Kraków at the age of 27, shortly before Nazi occupation of the city came to an end.  Each book’s classmark is shown below its cover, with a link to iDiscover.

Mel Bach