Historical fiction books set in Poland (9)


Find more books set in Poland by genre:
1.

The Books of Jacob by Olga Tokarczuk EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Poland flag Poland
Description:
The much-anticipated English translation of Olga Tokarczuk’s magnum opus

2.

The Tin Drum by Günter Grass EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Poland flag Poland
Description:
ONE OF TWELVE TITLES IN VINTAGE'S A FORMAT WAR PROMOTION The publication of The Tin Drum in 1959 launched Gunther Grass as an author of international repute. Bitter and impassioned, it delivers a scathing dissection of the years from 1925 to 1955 through the eyes of Oskar Matzerath, the dwarf whose manic beating on the toy of his retarded childhood fantastically counterpoints the accumulating horrors of Germany and Poland under the Nazis.


4.

Swimming in the Dark : A Novel by Tomasz Jedrowski EN

Rating: 3 (3 votes)
Country: Europe / Poland flag Poland
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

5.

The Magician of Lublin by Isaac Bashevis Singer EN

Rating: 4 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Poland flag Poland
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

6.

Chasing the King of Hearts by Hanna Krall EN

0 Ratings
Country: Europe / Poland flag Poland
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.

7.

The Beautiful Mrs. Seidenman by Andrzej Szczypiorski EN

Rating: 5 (1 vote)
Country: Europe / Poland flag Poland
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

8.

This Way for the Gas, Ladies and Gentlemen by Tadeusz Borowski EN

0 Ratings
Country: Europe / Poland flag Poland
Description:
Tadeusz Borowski’s concentration camp stories were based on his own experiences surviving Auschwitz and Dachau. In spare, brutal prose he describes a world where where the will to survive overrides compassion and prisoners eat, work and sleep a few yards from where others are murdered; where the difference between human beings is reduced to a second bowl of soup, an extra blanket or the luxury of a pair of shoes with thick soles; and where the line between normality and abnormality vanishes. Published in Poland after the Second World War, these stories constitute a masterwork of world literatu... continue

9.

The Painted Bird by Jerzy Kosinski EN

Rating: 4.5 (6 votes)
Country: Europe / Poland flag Poland
Description:
A young boy, abandoned by his parents during World War II, wanders alone from one village to another in Nazi-occupied Eastern Europe.