Helena from Team Bookinfluencers here, introducing you to some of my favourite books from Poland available in English translation. I come from the land of vodka, dumplings and kiełbasa (Polish sausage), so I’m biased of course. But let me convince you to add one or more of these to your TBR…

Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead by Olga Tokarczuk

Don’t be put off by the morbid title – if you enjoy quirky books, satirical writing, noir-thrillers, with a splash of magical realism thrown in, then this book is for you.

In a remote village in Poland, Janina devotes the dark winter days to studying astrology, translating the poetry of William Blake, and taking care of the summer homes of wealthy Warsaw residents. Her reputation as a crank and a recluse is amplified by her not-so-secret preference for the company of animals over humans. Then a neighbour, Big Foot, turns up dead. Soon other bodies are discovered, in increasingly strange circumstances. As suspicions mount, Janina inserts herself into the investigation, certain that she knows whodunit. If only anyone would pay her mind . . .

Olga Tokarczuk is one of Poland’s most famous contemporary writers and won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2018.

My First Suicide by Jerzy Pilch

Continuing with the quirky, this collection of darkly funny short stories offers a snapshot of Polish life.

My First Suicide straddles the line between intimate revelation and drunken confession. These 10 short stories reveal a nostalgic and poetic Pilch, one who can pen a character’s lyrical ode to the fate of his father’s perfect chess table in one story, examine a teacher’s desperate and dangerous infatuation with a student in the next, and then, always true to his obsessions, tell a remarkably touching story that begins by describing his narrator’s excitement at the possibility of a three-way with the seductive soccer-fan, Anka Chow Chow. The stories of My First Suicide combine irony and humor, anecdote and gossip, love and desire with an irresistibly readable style that is vintage Pilch.

Jerzy Pilch is one of the most important contemporary writers and journalists in Poland. Pilch has a long-running satirical newspaper column. He has also published several novels, and has been nominated for Poland’s prestigious NIKE Literary Award four times. His novels have been translated into numerous languages.

The Doll by Bolesław Prus

Now onto the classics! Confession – I haven’t actually read this one, (forgive me, Mum!), so I’m adding it to my TBR now.

Bołeslaw Prus is often compared to Chekhov. Prus’s masterpiece might be described as an intimate epic, a beautifully detailed, utterly absorbing exploration of life in late-nineteenth-century Warsaw.

The Doll a brilliant novel of character, dramatizing conflicting ideas through the various convictions, ambitions, confusions, and frustrations of an extensive and varied cast

At the centre of the book are three men from three different generations. Prus’s anti-hero is Wokulski, a successful businessman who yearns for recognition from Poland’s decadent aristocracy and falls desperately in love with the highborn, glacially beautiful Izabela. Wokulski’s story is intertwined with that of Rzecki, a romantic old clerk nostalgic for the revolutions of 1848, and of the bright young scientist Ochocki, who dreams of a future full of flying machines and other marvels.

Cosmos by Witold Gombrowicz

Back to weird and wonderful, meet Witold Gobrowicz, one of the most renowned and rebellious authors in Poland. He spent much of his life in exile in Argentina, where he could escape the limitations of censorship.

A dark, quasi-detective novel, Cosmos follows the classic noir motif to explore the arbitrariness of language, the joke of human freedom, and man’s attempt to bring order out of chaos in his psychological life. Published in 1965, Cosmos is the last novel by Witold Gombrowicz and his most sombre and multifaceted work. Two young men meet by chance in a Polish resort town in the Carpathian Mountains. Intending to spend their vacation relaxing, they find a secluded family-run pension. But the two become embroiled first in a macabre event on the way to the pension, then in the peculiar activities and psychological travails of the family running it. Gombrowicz offers no solution to their predicament.

The Witcher by Andrzej Sapkowski

Have you watched or heard of The Witcher series on Netflix? Did you know it was based on a book by a Polish author?

The Witcher Saga by Andrzej Sapkowski is a Polish fantasy series that has been translated into many languages and adapted into both a popular video game series and a Netflix show.

The Witcher began as a short story that Sapkowski entered into a competition, marking his debut as an author. The books have been described as having a cult following in Poland and throughout Central and Eastern Europe. They have been translated into 37 languages and sold over 15 million copies worldwide as of July 2020.

The saga focuses on the stories of Geralt of Rivia, a Witcher, and Ciri, a princess who becomes a witcher-in-training. Geralt, with the help of Yennefer of Vengerberg, must keep Ciri safe from the many people who wish to use her for political gains, all while training her in the ways of being a Witcher. Witchers are monster hunters given superhuman abilities for the purpose of killing dangerous creatures.  

If none of these sound like your bag, you can get some more recs for Polish books in English translation here, here and here.