Cold Sea Stories
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- 6,49 €
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- 6,49 €
Publisher Description
A student pedals an old Ukraina bicycle between striking factories, delivering bulletins, in the tumultuous first days of the Solidarity movement...
A shepherd watches, unseen, as a strange figure disembarks from a pirate ship anchored in the cove below, to bury a chest on the beach that later proves empty...
A prisoner in a Berber dungeon recounts his life s story the failed pursuit of the world s very first language by scrawling in the sand on his cell floor...
The characters in Pawel Huelle's mesmerising stories find themselves, willingly or not, at the heart of epic narratives; legends and histories that stretch far beyond the limits of their own lives. Against the backdrop of the Baltic coast, mythology and meteorology mix with the inexorable tide of political change: Kashubian folklore, Chinese mysticism and mediaeval scholarship butt up against the war in Chechnya, 9-11, and the struggle for Polish independence.
Central to Huelle's imagery is the vision of the refugee be it the Chechen woman carrying her newborn child across the Polish border (her face emblazoned on every TV screen), the survivor of the Gulag re-appearing on his friends doorstep, years after being presumed dead, or the stranger who befriends the sole resident of a ghostly Mennonite village in the final days of the Second World War. Each refugee carries a clue, it seems, or is in possession or pursuit of some mysterious text or book, knowing that only it like the Chinese Book of Changes can decode their story. What we do with this text, this clue, Huelle seems to say, is up to us.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This latest volume of stories by Polish author Huelle has a circular structure: the opening and closing stories illuminate the lesser-known historical curiosity of the remote villages populated by Mennonite immigrants from the Netherlands. Huelle's remaining stories are carried by historical events that defined Poland in the 20th century. "Franz Carl Weber" explores the effects of World War II and concentration camps. Likewise, "the Bicycle Express" grapples with communism and the Solidarity Movement. Many of the characters are quiet and contemplative and often experiencing displacement or isolation. The husband in "Doctor Cheng" mourns his dead wife by searching for her mystical Chinese book. Protagonist Joachim in "Ukiel" dwells in deeply felt childhood memories haunted by the questions that have gone unasked and unanswered. In each story, characters carry the heavy burden of the past toward a seemingly bleak future. Yet the book is not full of sorrows or regrets, it is largely distinguished by a quiet acceptance that loss is a part of life.
