The Forgotten

What remains of a life when no one is looking?

In two haunting narratives, the Polish writer and dramatist Rafał Wojasiński enters the private worlds of women living beyond the attention of others.

In The Forgotten Region, a woman wanders through a landscape of abandoned houses, overgrown fields and neglected graves. The warmth of a kitchen, a familiar face, a childhood refuge: each seems reassuringly real, until past and present begin to slip out of place.

In The Wooden Tulip, a bedridden woman addresses her mother in letters filled with longing, anger and unsparing observation. As the room around her seems to come apart, a voice from a radio offers the possibility of companionship.

From the author of Olanda and Tefil, The Forgotten brings an unsettling intimacy to questions of memory, desire, dependence and human dignity. Wojasiński's precise, sensuous prose finds beauty amid decay without softening the loneliness of those who live in it. These are lives easily passed over, and voices that trouble our certainty about what we see, what we believe and whom we choose to remember.

Translated from the Polish and introduced by Charles S. Kraszewski. Published with the support of the ©POLAND Translation Program.