Kazimierz Orłoś, the author of many works valued by readers and critics alike, such as Dziewczyna z ganku / The Girl from the Porch and Letnik z Mierzei / The Holidaymaker from the Sandbar, has published a volume of novellas, Bez ciebie nie mogę żyć / I Can't Live Without You. This collection of miniature masterpieces of literary realism contains portrayals of Poland and a great deal of truth about the lives of "poor people".
"Without them, literature dies. Because, it dies without birth, love, death, fidelity, infidelity, and also - so important to us - faith and hope", he writes.
In his review, Krzysztof Masłoń ("Rzeczpospolita" 19 March 2010) enthuses about the crystalline purity of Orłoś's prose, contrasting so strongly with the topics of his stories which do not hesitate to present the dark side of our reality. He admires the writer's linguistic precision, economy of words, literary concentration, and extraordinarily apt choice of words, words that always correspond to the importance of the event being described.
Masłoń concludes his review with much praise for the collection:
"I recommend 'Bez ciebie nie mogę żyć' / 'I Can't Live Without You' as a showpiece of the output of one of the greatest living Polish prose writers, wrongfully crammed at one time into the framework of something described as small realism. Naturally, Orłoś is a realist, because a writer wanting to write the truth has to be, and truth is all that interests the author of 'Śmierć cygańskiego króla' / 'The Gypsy King's Death'. If we are talking about Kazimierz Orłoś's realism, then it is great realism."
Source: www.wydawnictwoliterackie.pl, press materials.
- Kazimierz Orłoś
Bez ciebie nie mogę żyć / I Can't Live Without You
Wydawnictwo Literackie, Kraków 2010
123 x 197 mm, 372 pp., hard cover
ISBN 978-83-08-044-20-9
www.wydawnictwoliterackie.pl