Parnicki uses European and non-European – Mexican, for instance – history, like in the novel Labirynt (Labirynth), its title an apt reflection of his complicated writing. We, the readers, as well as the characters and the narrator, seem to be moving in corridors of unknown directions and unpredictable destinations.
Due to its limited size, a profile like this cannot possibly give full justice to Parnicki's enormous creative powers nor to his historical and literary erudition. While quoting, referring to literary heritage, using proverbs and bon mots, he exploited the stuff which in one form or another had always circulated and been present in the Polish culture, yet he made a creative selection, used veils, developed the mysterious threads and challenged the readers' erudition.
Once out, Słowo i Ciało, Twarz Księżyca (The Face of the Moon), the first volume of Nowa Baśń and Tylko Beatrycze (Only Beatrice) earned Parnicki a following a readers. His popularity was rising despite the fact that every new book of his took a considerable effort of the intellect and imagination to comprehend. A direct contact with the writer was not possible until 1963, when Parnicki came to Poland at the invitation of the PAX publishing house. This half-year visit was extremely important and useful, allowing him to understand the situation of the Polish culture and to get to know the opinions and feedback on his writing. He was surprised to discover that not everybody called him a historical novelist – as if they did not understand the method of historical studies which he tried to consistently develop from early on. This prompted him to write in the preface to I u Możnych Dziwny (Strange Even Among the Mighty), the novel utilizing the theme of the mysterious youth of Zagłoba, a Henryk Sienkiewicz character:
I will defend a view that a historical novel is a novel whose basic concept was born after a historical event (or a series of such events) made known to the writer as a result of his becoming familiar with information contained in a scholarly historical work had fertilized his intellect and imagination. This is how all my historical novels have been conceived.
All in all, Parnicki always underlined his historical novelist's background.
After 1963 had brought him two awards – the Włodzimierz Pietrzak Literary Award and the Paris Kultura Award – he returned to Poland in July 1967 to settle there permanently. The 1960s saw him write further, dynamic volumes of Nowa Baśń; together with other novels, they formed the skeleton of his grand literary and biographical construction, a meeting point of truth and imagination, of fact and fiction.
As well as acquainting the reader with the world of ancient events, Parnicki's prose reveals the workings of creation, his novels being stories of novel-writing and of developing plots that will conquer the presented world and the author himself. He intended to create a new style of historical novel, one that would be multi-voiced and different from the traditional narration of Sienkiewicz's – a never-ending and endless story capturing the events at birth and at subsequent phases, the retrospections and the transformations. He read a series of lectures that presented and analyzed his works at the Polish Studies Institute, Warsaw University, in the academic year 1972/73.
In 1983 Parnicki received an honorary doctorate from Jagiellonian University. His other distinctions included the Alfred Jurzykowski Foundation Award and twice the National Award of 1st Degree.
Teodor Parnicki died in Warsaw on 5th December 1988.