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'Dukla' by Andrzej Stasiuk

Stasiuk's masterpiece in a stunning translation by Bill Johnston

Dukla
By Andrzej Stasiuk
Translated by Bill Johnston
Published by Dalkey Archive Press
Publication date: October 2011
£8.65
Buy online

Stasiuk's masterpiece - in line with the work of Danilo Kis and countryman Bruno Schulz - is finally made available in English in a stunning translation by Bill Johnston...

At several points in the haunting Dukla, Andrzej Stasiuk claims that what he is trying to do is "write a book about light." The result is a beautiful, lyrical series of evocations of a very specific locale at different times of the year, in different kinds of weather, and with different human landscapes. Dukla, in fact, is a real place: a small resort town not far from where Stasiuk now lives. Taking a usual form—a short essay, a novella, and then a series of brief portraits of local people or events—this book, though bordering on the metaphysical, the mystical, even the supernatural, never loses sight of the particular time, and above all place, in which it is rooted. Andrzej Stasiuk is one of the leading writers of Poland's younger generation, and is currently one of the most popular Polish novelists in English translation.

Andrzej Stasiuk has received numerous awards for his work, including the NIKE, Poland's most prestigious literary prize, for his 2004 collection of essays On the Road to Babadag. His 1999 novel Nine was recently published in English to great critical acclaim. Stasiuk also runs a publishing house, specializing in Central and Eastern European prose.

Bill Johnston is the leading translator of Polish literature in the United States. His translation of Tadeusz Różewicz's new poems won the 2008 Found in Translation Award and was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Poetry Award.

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