On The Road To Babadag

Download or read book On the Road to Babadag written by Andrzej Stasiuk and published by HMH. This book was released on 2011-06-16 with total page 277 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Journey through Poland, Ukraine, Slovenia, and other places neglected by tourists, with “an accomplished stylist with an eye for telling detail” (Irvine Welsh). Andrzej Stasiuk is a restless and indefatigable traveler. By car, train, bus, and ferry, he goes from his native Poland to Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Albania, Moldova, and Ukraine—to small towns and villages with strangely evocative names. “The heart of my Europe,” he tells us, “beats in Sokolów Podlaski and in Huși. It does not beat in Vienna.” In Comrat, a funeral procession moves slowly down the main street, the open coffin on a pickup truck, an old woman dressed in black brushing away the flies above the face of the deceased. In Soroca, he locates a baroque-Byzantine-Tatar-Turkish encampment, to meet Gypsies. And all the way to Babadag, between the Baltic Coast and the Black Sea, Stasiuk indulges his curiosity and his love for the forgotten places and people of Europe. “There isn’t quite a name for the region that holds the Polish writer Andrzej Stasiuk in thrall. The general drift is from ‘the land of King Ubu to the land of Count Dracula’, Poland to Romania. . . . Its nucleus is the landlocked centre of Central Europe; its protoplasm spreads like an amoeba through the Balkans. It cannot be convincingly mapped. . . . As travel writing, this is unconventional, but as literature profoundly authentic.” —The Independent (UK) “A mesmerizing, not-to-be-missed trek through a little-visited region of the world.” —Kirkus Reviews “A eulogy for the old Europe, the Europe both in and out of time, the Europe now lost in the folds of the map.” —The Guardian (UK)

Download or read book Polish Literature and National Identity written by Dariusz Skórczewski and published by . This book was released on 2020 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A postcolonial study of Polish literature from Romanticism to the twenty-first century

Download or read book Dukla (Polish Literature Series) written by Andrzej Stasiuk and published by Dalkey Archive Press. This book was released on 2011-10-25 with total page 209 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "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 an usual form--a short essay, a novella, and then a series of brief portraits of local people or event--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"--Page 4 of cover.

Download or read book Tales of Galicia written by Andrzej Stasiuk and published by . This book was released on 2003 with total page 154 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Poetry. Translation. Seemingly a set of prose ballads about the southeastern tip of Poland, TALES OF GALICIA brilliantly blurs the line between the short-story genre and the novel, while giving a vivid, poetic portrait of an imaginary village that was once part of a vibrant collective farm system. It is a part of Poland that - once inhabited by Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews - suddenly became homogenous after the war. Those who came to live in this region formed their own peculiar culture that lacked any sort of historical connection to what had preceded it. The village became depressed, its inhabitants largely unemployed and spending most of their time drinking in the pub. But rather than dark, naturalistic dirge, Stasiuk exhibits a Hrabalian flare for language and description that turns the banality and drudgery of these lives into poetry, with a final redemption scene that is at once comical, moving, and starkly beautiful.

Download or read book 100 Greatest Cycling Climbs written by Simon Warren and published by Frances Lincoln. This book was released on 2013-04-01 with total page 176 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Cycling is Britain’s biggest boom sport and nowhere is the boom more evident than on the road: once seen as the preserve of serious racers, the road bike has recently found a new lease of life due to the popularity of challenge rides and Sportives. It is now possible for cyclists of all abilities to ride a well marked, well marshalled event just about any weekend of the year, usually based around one, two or sometimes as many as ten fearsome hills. For the first time, here is a pocket-sized guide to the 100 greatest climbs in the land, the building blocks for these rides, written by a cyclist for cyclists. From lung busting city centre cobbles to leg breaking windswept mountain passes, this guide locates the roads that have tested riders for generations and worked their way into cycling folklore. Whether you’re a leisure cyclist looking for a challenge or an elite athlete trying to break records stick this book in your pocket and head for the hills. To watch a video of Simon Warren in action click here

Download or read book Between East and West written by Anne Applebaum and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2017-06-13 with total page 349 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1991, Anne Applebaum, Pulitzer Prize-winning author of Gulag, Iron Curtain and Red Famine, took a three-month road trip through the borderlands between the fallen Soviet Union and Europe—lands that became Ukraine, Belarus, Lithuania and Moldova. In her iconic reportage, which has become indispensable history, she captures the harrowing story of a region that is once again threatened by Russia. An extraordinary journey into the past and present of the lands east of Poland and west of Russia—an area defined throughout its history by colliding empires. Traveling from the former Soviet naval center of Kaliningrad on the Baltic to the Black Sea port of Odessa, Anne Applebaum encounters a rich range of competing cultures, religions, and national aspirations. In reasserting their heritage, the inhabitants of the borderlands attempt to build a future grounded in their fractured ancestral legacies. In the process, neighbors unearth old conflicts, devote themselves to recovering lost culture, and piece together competing legends to create a new tradition. Rich in surprising encounters and vivid characters, Between East and West brilliantly illuminates the soul of the borderlands and the shaping power of the past.

Download or read book White Raven written by Andrzej Stasiuk and published by . This book was released on 2000 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: An adventure story and a reflection of the experience of a generation, White Raven is a tale of childhood friends, cast adrift by the tide of change that swept through Poland during the 1980s. Following the accidental death of a policeman, the men go on the run. The urgent flight through the desolate winter mountains abruptly ends with a climax as shocking as it is symbolic. White Raven won the prestigious Fundacja Koscielskich Award. o First English translation of the Polish Kerouac o Cult novel of the post-communist generation o Ad in Book Forum Andrzej Stasiuk was born in 1960 and lives in Poland. His first book, The Walls of Hebron, is a collection of twelve stories about prison, based on the experience of his desertion from the army.