Mysliwski's outwardly ordinary narrator has had a colourful life: a happy country childhood disrupted by war, confinement in a vile orphanage, jobs as an electrician helping to rebuild the nation and as the sax player in a travelling dance band, and finally a return home to his village.
Mrozek was a master satirist, writing around the censor through the medium of absurdity. These anarchic parables cock a snook at the equally absurd humbug of communist authority, though their sinister comedy could apply to any form of totalitarianism.
The Nobel laureate's historical epic fictionalises the life of Jacob Frank, the bizarre but influential self-proclaimed messiah whose dedicated worshippers followed him around 18th-century Europe. This visionary novel re-creates his world in vivid, sensual detail.
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