The Decade in Prose

Abstract

Prose writing is always a bit slow to respond to events of historical magnitude. Thus it is not surprising that there was no sudden explosion of new authors or new artistic trends onto the Polish literary scene in 1989 or directly afterwards, despite the claims of so many critics who believed that a fundamental change was imminent--one which would utterly transform the face of literature in Poland. To be sure, such a turning point--both generational and thematic--did soon arrive. But again, it was marked not so much by an invasion of new books, as by an accelerated process of forgetting the old works and the old authors. The dramatic political transformation of 1989 dealt harshly not only with literary figures tied directly to the so-called court of state-sanctioned literature, but also with many second-tier writers. Where they had previously been able to count on having their books published by state-owned publishing houses, these writers were suddenly forced to confront unusually strong competition from t he authors of international bestsellers, from an influx of works by emigre authors (who were once again becoming available to Polish readers), and from works which had until then been available only in underground editions. At the same time that the state-owned publishing giants were being dismantled, new, private publishing houses were too poorly financed to risk publishing works that could not guarantee large sales. Thus in the first few years of independence a paradoxical change occurred: with the exception of books by a few hallowed contemporary writers, new Polish prose works all but disappeared from bookstore shelves, to be replaced by titles acquired or imported from abroad. The first years of Poland's first decade of independence were marked by a peculiar void in terms of prose, a period of relative calm and a clearing of the front lines. Consequently, the most important prose writers of the early 1990s were actually the previously forbidden Jozef Mackiewicz and Gustaw Herling-Grudzinski, whose works began to appear in Polish bookstores for the first time, as well as Witold Gombrowicz--who was still being published in large print-runs (following the release of an official edition in 1988)--and finally Czeslaw Milosz, whose essays represent one of the most important phenomena in prose writing of the last decade. [1] Also notable were new stories by Herling, which he inlaid in his Dziennik pisany nocq (Diary written at night) , [2] and later published in separate volumes; as well as the works of such well-known writers as Tadeusz Konwicki, Hanna Krall, Andrzej Szczypiorski, and Ryszard Kapuscinski. [3] The situation of prose writing in the early 1990s was also influenced by a radical reorganization of the book market, which was in turn tied to a dramatic drop in the demand for literature. The public's interest in Polish prose had to be rebuilt virtually from the ground up; and to do this, an entirely new type of artistic work was needed, the work of a young generation of authors. At the same time, a visible group of critics from this same generation began to champion the authors of this new work with great enthusiasm and energy. In the face of the crisis within the traditional literary press, this promotional work was also taken up on radio and television, as well as in the literary supplements to major daily newspapers. In addition, new and in some cases short-lived periodicals also played a major role--if less visible at first glance--in promoting the new prose. These magazines initiated focused discussion of new literary trends, making them an important element in the collective consciousness. The situa tion of the literary landscape can be said to have changed fundamentally by 1995-a date which marked the simultaneous appearance of a number of new, important books by young authors -- and popular attention began to focus on the new prose. This popular demand for the new literature helped draw attention to writers whose literary debuts had been delayed, as well as to those writers who, due to the political situation, and the understandable ineffectiveness of promotional mechanisms in the 1980s, had been prevented from gaining wider popularity. …