Description
Book Synopsis‘I had only one eye, I was hungry and cold, yet I wanted to live… so that I could tell it all just as I’ve told you.’ - From Zofia Nalkowska’s Medallions (1947).
Witness to two world wars and Poland’s struggle for independence, Zofia Nalkowska’s commitment to recording all is her gift to European literature. Her own story of love affairs, family loyalty and survival is remarkable in itself. Yet, her determination to record others’ truth, however painful, ties her fate to a nation whose battle for identity is both brutal and romantic. Her most renowned work, Medallions, a collection of short stories, exposes and restores dignity to people reduced, through Nazi occupation, to burnt out ghettos and guillotined heads heaped ‘like potatoes’. In contrast, as a keen and visionary observer of beauty, Nalkowska is innovative in exploring motherhood’s psychological imprint and the blurred boundaries of male and female relationships. Drawing on her own background as a poet and Polish Studies graduate, Jenny’s Robertson’s literary biography celebrates the achievements of a pioneering writer whose love of life not only propelled her to fame, but gave her the courage to witness atrocity. In doing so, Nalkowska’s life and writing reflect and inform Europe's cultural heritage.
Trade Review“Zofia always believed that women should have the same rights as men, not just to vote, but to love whoever they pleased. She was a feminist avant la lettre, her feminism was in her actions and her life.” – Scottish Review
"Nałkowska has been sadly overlooked outside her native land. Jenny Robertson’s biography is a bold and often gripping attempt to set this right...unputdownable." — European Literature Network
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations ix
A word about Polish xii
Introduction 1
1 Youth absorbed in the third person 3
2 Icy fields – the challenge of a woman writer 11
3 Life in its entirety 19
4 Laying out life in patterns 30
5 Encircled by fire 39
6 Independent employment 50
7 Living on the edge 57
8 Unkind love 72
9 House of women 86
10 My highest level 101
11 Literature rejuvenates 114
12 Boundary and beyond 124
13 Storm clouds near and far 132
14 Taken to the gates of hell 142
15 Bombardment 149
16 A rosary of deaths 163
17 That smoking wound 176
18 Cameos of crime 188
19 Restored to life 202
20 Knots of life 214
In Memoriam 223
Notes 225
Bibliography 239
Acknowledgements 243
