White Nights - by Urszula Honek (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

In thirteen interconnected stories, White Nights tells of the various tragedies and misfortunes that befall a group of people from the same village in the remote Beskid Niski region, in southern Poland. Each story revolves around a different character and how it is that they manage to continue on despite the poverty, disappointment, tragedy, despair, brutality, and general sense of futility that surrounds them. Urszula relates to us, with the sincerest care and honesty, a local--yet so clearly universal--story of ruin and hope. A story where the protagonists do not ask to be understood, but merely to be seen and to be heard.

Kate Webster's brilliant translation of Urszula's poetic, yet often earthen, prose brings us to places that, though they are seldom seen in literature, we may never forget.

Review Quotes

Winner of the Witold Gombrowicz Literary Prize

Winner of the Kościelski Award

"White Nights is a dark, lyrical exploration of the ways in which people seek meaning and belonging in a transient world."--International Booker Prize judging committee

"Honek with complete cruelty, but also mastery, symbolically kills her influences. She stands firmly on her own two feet, moving readers with her own voice - immediately clear, set and full."--Paulina Malochleb, Empik Critics' Choice

"White Nights, is akin to reading an account of a haunted place - one that is beautiful and devastating in equal measure. . . . Though firmly categorizable as literary fiction, my eerie detector prickled at the dreamlike, latent danger threading through these interconnected chronicles."--Jennifer Brough, Litro Magazine