Historical fiction books from Poland
Recommended historical fiction books (13)
Travel the world without leaving your chair.
If you are into historical fiction here are some historical fiction books from Poland for the next part of the Read Around The World Challenge.
1.
Chasing the King of Hearts by Hanna Krall EN
Description:
After the deportation of her husband to Auschwitzm Izolda Ragenberg, alias Maria Pawlicka, has only one aim: to free her husband. Her race to beat fate might appear absurd to others, but not to her. In times of war and destruction she learns to trust herself.
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Sarah : A Novel by Marek Halter EN
Description:
Sarah’s story begins in the cradle of civilization: the Sumerian city-state of Ur, a land of desert heat, towering gardens, and immense wealth. The daughter of a powerful lord, Sarah balks at the marriage her father has planned for her. On her wedding day, she impulsively flees to the vast, empty marshes outside the city walls, where she meets a young man named Abram, son of a tribe of outsiders. Drawn to this exotic stranger, Sarah spends one night with him and reluctantly returns to her father’s house. But on her return, she secretly drinks a poisonous potion that will make her barren and thu... continue
5.
Swimming in the Dark : A Novel by Tomasz Jedrowski EN
Description:
"When university student Ludwik meets Janusz at a summer agricultural camp, he is fascinated yet wary of this handsome, carefree stranger. But a chance meeting by the river soon becomes an intense, exhilarating, and all-consuming affair. After their camp duties are fulfilled, the pair spend a dreamlike few weeks camping in the countryside, bonding over an illicit copy of James Baldwin's Giovanni's Room. Inhabiting a beautiful natural world removed from society and its constraints, Ludwik and Janusz fall deeply in love. But in their repressive communist and Catholic society, the passion they sh... continue
6.
The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman by Andrzej Szczypiorski EN
Description:
Reissued with an introduction by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, a stunning and disquieting novel of heroism and cowardice A masterful novel that was a huge bestseller in Europe, The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman is a testament to the power of literature. Now with an introduction by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, who named it her "favorite book no one else has heard of" in the New York Times, the novel follows Irma Seidenman, a young Jewish widow in Nazi-occupied Warsaw in 1943, who possesses two attributes that can spell the difference between life and death: blue eyes and blond hair. With these features, an... continue
7.
The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk EN
Description:
The much-anticipated English translation of Olga Tokarczuk’s magnum opus
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Description:
Boleslaw Prus is often compared to Chekhov, and Prus’s masterpiece might be described as an intimate epic, a beautifully detailed, utterly absorbing exploration of life in late-nineteenth-century Warsaw, which is also a prophetic reckoning with some of the social forces—imperialism, nationalism, anti-Semitism among them—that would soon convulse Europe as never before. But The Doll is above all a brilliant novel of character, dramatizing conflicting ideas through the various convictions, ambitions, confusions, and frustrations of an extensive and varied cast. At the center of the book are three... continue
9.
The Magician of Lublin by Isaac Bashevis Singer EN
Description:
Yasha the magician - sword swallower, fire eater, acrobat and master of escape - is famed for his extraordinary Houdini-like skills. Half Jewish, half Gentile, a free thinker who slips easily between worlds, Yasha has an observant wife, a loyal assistant who travels with him and a woman in every town. Now, though, his exploits are catching up with him, and he is tempted to make one final escape - from his marriage, his homeland and the last tendrils of his father's religion. Set in Warsaw and the shtetls of the 1870s, Isaac Bashevis Singer's second novel is a haunting psychological portrait of... continue
10.
The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski EN
Description:
A young boy, abandoned by his parents during World War II, wanders alone from one village to another in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe.