"The Bell-Ringer's Last Toll", Herling-Grudzinski's last story, is the tale of a child who, having suffered a dreadful injustice, finds himself in a state of 'walled-inness' (...). Decades later, a miracle occurs: the walls which enclosed him draw apart for a certain time...
"The Bell-Ringer's Last Toll, Herling-Grudziński's last story, is the tale of a child who, having suffered a dreadful injustice, finds himself in a state of 'walled-inness', of self-imposed seclusion from the world and a withdrawal into himself. Decades later, a miracle occurs: the walls which enclosed him draw apart for a certain time, and a person who feels gentle love, passionate anger and a despairingly open sense of mission appears. It is none other than Fra Nafta, a Jewish child who was saved from a burning house and brought up by Franciscans, who is endowed with the moral right and divine mandate to attempt to tell to a world grown deaf to the sacrum that evil has not yet disappeared and that suffering is meaningful." (Piotr Śliwiński)
Gustaw Herling-Grudziński (1919-2000) was one of the most outstanding Polish writers of the twentieth century. His prose could be characterised as metaphysical crime stories. Their literary form, reminiscent of the stories of Edgar Allan Poe, Herman Melville and Henry James, is typical for Herling-Grudziński who renewed nineteenth-century type of prose.
- Gustaw Herling-Grudziński
The Bell-Ringer's Last Toll / Podzwonne dla dzwonnika
Czytelnik, Warszawa 2000
© Gustaw Herling-Grudziński / estate
c/o Andrew Nurnberg Associates Warsaw
125 x 196, 69 pages, hardcover
ISBN 83-07-02760-8