In this insightful book, Jaroslaw Anders looks at how the major works of 20th-century Polish literature constantly transformed historical experience into the metaphysical, philosophical, or religious exploration of human existence. Between Fire and Sleep offers a fresh understanding of modern Polish culture.

 

The first full comparative study of the Polish-Jewish writer and artist. “Banks is able to find links, parallels, analogues and interconnections that are often unexpected and surprising, and always rich in complex meaning. Yet, as Banks argues in his horizon-broadening interpretation, Schulz cannot be confined to any set of contexts, and, like Blake and Yeats, is ultimately a poet who exists in his own self-created mythic world”. – Prof. Daniel Gerould, CUNY

 

 

Few are [Lem's] peers in poetic expression, in word play, and in imaginative and sophisticated sympathy.
- Kurt Vonnegut

[Lem was] a giant of mid-20th-century science fiction, in a league with Arthur C. Clarke, Isaac Asimov and Philip K. Dick.
- The New York Times

 

 

When I reviewed the first English edition of this book in 1984, I called it "the richest and most persuasive portrait of Conrad we have had or will probably ever have." Once again, Professor Najder sets the very highest biographical standard. Everything that has come to light about Conrad during the past quarter-century is now seamlessly integrated into the revised text. – Frederick Crews, Professor Emeritus, U.C. Berkeley

 

The Wall in My Head is an exciting anthology of texts and images by writers and artists who witnessed the collapse of Communism firsthand and by those who grew up in its wake. Polish authors Zbigniew Herbert, Pawel Huelle, Ryszard Kapuscinski, Dorota Maslowska, and Andrzej Stasiuk are featured.

The editors have arranged these high-caliber works to create a tension between celebratory and somber writing, and that gives the book a touch of greatness.– The Brooklyn Rail