"Some kind of kismet continues to link Olga Tokarczuk and Peter Handke. The authors belong to different generations, write in different languages and generate considerably different levels of controversy. But events unrelated to them conspired such that they learned of their Nobel Prize wins (Tokarczuk: 2018; Handke: 2019) on the same day and received those prizes at the same ceremony two months later."
"Calling the book a novel feels misleading. Its main character is not a person but a place: the Polish region perched on the country's border with Czechia. Tenuously strung from short portraits and vignettes, its plot doesn't arc so much as weave like a master spinner, say, or a drunk gamely attempting to walk home. In this sense, it shares a clear lineage with another book of hers, Flights, which NPR's reviewer described variously as a "cabinet of curiosities" and a "journey without a destination.""
Olga Tokarczuk and Peter Handke both learned of their Nobel Prize wins on the same day and received their prizes at the same ceremony two months later. Their books share top billing on a single publishing week despite differing generations, languages, and controversies. House of Day, House of Night was first published in Polish in 1998 and in English in 2002; the work centers on a Polish border region rather than a single protagonist and consists of short portraits and vignettes that weave rather than follow a traditional arc. The Ballad of the Last Guest is Handke's latest novel, with an English translation appearing a couple of years after its German publication, and independent presses also contribute new novels that week.
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