Joanna Bator's new novel, Dark, Almost Night has earned the author Poland’s most prestigious literary award, the Nike Prize.
The forbidding title accurately reflects the sinister tone of Dark, Almost Night, which Joanna Bator wrote in the purest Gothic style. Compositely, the plot also brings in elements that recall the ubiquitous Scandinavian-thriller style. Alicja Tabor, Bator’s heroine and anagram, returns to her hometown of Wałbrzych after an absence of several years, when suddenly children begin to mysteriously disappear.
While the formula may seem commonplace, Bator infuses her novel with a sufficient quirkiness that refuses genre stereotypes. The protagonist, who goes by the inexplicable nickname of Camelette, takes us through areas and aspects of Poland mostly unknown to outsiders. Wałbrzych, a Silesian city near the Czech border, is described by the author as "removed from the accelerating world and worldly Wrocław." Moreover, Bator lends her voice to the excluded, never romanticizing their language, which lends an element of contrast to her elegant narration:
As I closed the door behind him, I slammed it too hard, knocking off the horseshoe that was hanging on its inner side for good luck, which had evidently ignored this sign of encouragement. It wasn’t the last thing to fall down that day, to disintegrate or turn out to be broken beyond hope. The house was dying before my very eyes, as if wanting to take revenge on me.
Founded in 1997 by Gazeta Wyborcza, the second largest Polish newspaper, the Nike award has become an excellent barometer of contemporary Polish literature. It is conferred annually to the book of a living author published in the past year, and the honour can propel the winner onto the international scene. This year’s seven finalists comprised four women and three men, and four novels, a reportage, a poetry collection and a graphic novel. Bator took home 100,000 PLN (almost 25,000 EUR) and a statuette on October 6th, 2013.
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Sources: gazetawyborcza.pl, bookinstitute.pl, edited by MG, LB 07/10/2013