Tokarczuk said the novel would be her last major work of fiction. Speaking at this year’s Re_mind Psychology Congress and Festival in Wrocław, she said she felt the writing process was gradually coming to an end.
Tokarczuk said she had realised she had been writing “the same thing all the time.” She described the new book as a moment of closure and said she no longer wanted to continue telling stories, although she might find another form of expression.
The novel also takes readers beyond Lower Silesia, with settings including Lviv, Drohobych and Buenos Aires, and landscapes along the Dniester and Oder rivers.
Tokarczuk said the idea for the book came from a sense of obligation to write about the large migrations and forced population movements that followed the Second World War. She highlighted her personal attachment to Wrocław and Wałbrzych.
The author said her ancestors were among the people who moved from Poland’s eastern borderlands to Lower Silesia after the war, where they settled in place of displaced Germans.
Tokarczuk described the book as an expression of faith in the power of life, the ability to rebuild after catastrophe and the strength of diversity. She also said she hoped it would contribute to a better understanding of Poland’s complex collective identity.
Waldemar Popek, deputy editor-in-chief of the book’s publisher, Wydawnictwo Literackie, said the novel combined features characteristic of Tokarczuk’s work, including attention to overlooked perspectives, creative scope, intertextuality and attention to detail.
Popek said the novel approached historical events from beyond an anthropocentric perspective and presented a new view of the post-war migration wave, shaped by changing borders and the desperate circumstances faced by many people at the time.
The opening lines describe a bomb manufactured in the east and dropped from an aircraft over a snow-covered city in January 1945. They were read at this year’s Góry Literatury literary festival. The novel goes on sale on Wednesday.
(sp)
Source: PAP