These novels, that in some way trace the Eastern European experience from the late 19th century to the post-communist times, are particularly interesting to many of us in Plato with roots in that part of Europe.
The Magician of Lublin, written by Isaac Bashevis Singer in 1960, is an absorbing story of lust, ambition and redemption, that takes place at the end of 19th century in Poland and gives us insight into the lives of Jews in that period. In 1978, Singer became the first and only Yiddish writer to receive the Nobel Prize in Literature.
Ashes and Diamonds by Jerzy Andrzejewski takes us into the dangerous period in Poland right after WWII. A microcosm of the Polish nation--communists, socialists, fervent nationalists, fading aristocrats, black marketeers, and ex-Nazi collaborators attend a banquet of unity. But there appear two uninvited guests with an irreversible mission. Their arrival changes the trajectory for many of the participants. What will happen?
The Master and Margarita by Michael Bulgakov is a biting parody of life under the Soviet system. He worked on the book from 1928 until just before his death in 1940. The Devil with his entourage pays the citizens of Moscow a brief but unforgettable visit. Moscow is an officially atheistic city, and Bulgakov shows the hypocrisy and moral absurdities of the new “homo Sovieticus.
Bulgakov was outraged by Soviet anti-religious propaganda, especially the caricatured portrayals of Christ, which he answered by constructing a vivid narrative of Pontius Pilate and Yeshua that runs parallel to the Moscow plot.
It was first published posthumously in censored form in the mid 1960s. Today he is widely regarded as one of the major Russian prose writers of the twentieth century, with The Master and Margarita considered his masterpiece.
Olga Tokarczuk, born in 1962, wrote Flights, which is a fragmentary novel about travel, bodies, and motion. It won Poland’s Nike Award in 2008. In 2018 she became the first Polish writer to win the Man Booker International Prize for Flights. Also in 2018, she was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature, with the Swedish Academy highlighting her boundary-crossing, encyclopedic narrative imagination.
1 The Magician of Lublin Chapters 1-5
2 The Magician of Lublin Chapters 6-8 Epilogue
3 Ashes & Diamonds
4 Ashes & Diamonds
5 The Master & Margarita Part 1 Epigraph Chapters 1-9
6 The Master & Margarita Part 1 Chapters 10-18
7 The Master & Margarita Part 2 Chapters 19-26
8 The Master & Margarita Part 2 Chapters 27-32 Epilogue
9 Flights Here I Am – In Pursuit of Night
10 Flights Sanitary Pads – The History of Philip Verheyen
11 Flights Letters to the Amputated Leg – Godzone
12 Flights Fear Not – Boarding
Singer, Isaac Bashevis. The Magician of Lublin. Translated by Elaine Gottlieb and Joseph Singer. Penguin Books.
Andrzejewski, Jerzy. (1980) Ashes & Diamonds. Translated by D.J. Welsh. Northwestern University Press.
Bulgakov, Mikhail. (2001) The Master & Margarita. Penguin Books.
Tokarczuk, Olga. (2007) Flights. Riverhead Books.