A Stranger

This psychologically acute, devastating portrait of a tempestuous, unhappy mother and artist is a lost classic of Polish literature, now in a fresh translation.

“Incredibly fine-wrought... like a musical fugue.” —Bruno Schulz

As a young woman, Róża lost everything that mattered to her: her homeland, an early love, and her career as a violinist. Doomed to feel everywhere a stranger, she nursed dreams of grandeur and vengeance that shadowed the lives of her husband and children, who always viewed her with a mixture of awe, love and terror.

Now at 60, Róża visits her daughter on one disastrous day that will bring all the wounds and clashes of the past to the fore: from dark secrets in her married life to her efforts to control her son’s marriage and her daughter’s singing career. Diving into extended flashbacks that illuminate the darkest corners of Róża’s psyche, A Stranger depicts a whole life in one day, a day of explosive conflict but also, perhaps, of renewal.

With great psychological depth and vividly metaphorical language, Kuncewiczowa constructs an indelible portrait of a frustrated artist and ambivalent mother. Capricious, manipulative and moved by a titanic rage, Róża is the captivating and horrifying centre of this rediscovered classic of European fiction, which was decades ahead of its time. Acclaimed by the great Bruno Schulz, this literary gem from Poland is published in a lyrical new translation by the prize-winning Ursula Phillips.