Hubert Klimko-Dobrzaniecki, ‘Corkscrew’
The book was put out by Format Publishers. The prose writer Hubert Klimko-Dobrzaniecki, with whom readers are familiar from the novel Bornholm, Bornholm or from the Icelandic ballads about old age and dying collected in the diptych Dom Róży/Krýsuvík (Róża’s House/Krýsuvík), which was nominated for a Nike Literary Award, this time takes on the fate of a seemingly commonplace object with satirical wit. The corkscrew, for that is the subject of the book, is a wedding present which passes from hand to hand, changing the lives of those it touches. It is a novel with a criminal backstory, for one day the corkscrew ends up being driven directly into a human heart. This is a story for teenaged readers who are searching in literature for solutions about how to deal with life’s changes, how to make friends, how to deal with loneliness and the lack of support from those closest to them or – on the contrary – how to deal with overprotective parents who, out of unbridled love and without a moment’s reflection, will give their child five doughnuts for breakfast and then on top of that offer a cup of hot chocolate to wash it down. Does this sound familiar?
This book, filled with surprising plot turns and telling the story of Maja and Francis, two young Parisians, is illustrated with a sure hand by Anna Szejdewik/Coxie, a Wrocław-based street artist and painter of murals, who has, over the past few years, also developed her own tattoo parlour. And her book illustrations have that feel to them: they are graphically sharp, punk styled, drawn in free comic-book lines and reminiscent of tattoo art. They beautifully fit the fairy-tale nature of the text. Hubert Klimko-Dobrzaniecki’s book is published by Format.
Anna Dziewit-Meller on our awesome great-grandmothers: heroines & rebels
‘Damy, dziewuchy, dziewczyny’ by Anna Dziewit-Meller, photo: Znak Publishers Anna Dziewit-Meller, with a light touch and a sparkling sense of humour, reminds our youngest readers about some forgotten heroines of history – those about whom no one knows, about whom no one reads, about whom no one speaks. Women who didn’t care about good manners or about girlish games because they were far more interested, for example, in polishing their armour or saddling their horses so that they could take part in the January Insurrection, as did Anna Henryka Pustowójtówna, a nurse during the Franco-Prussian War and an adjutant at the battles of Pieskowa Skała and Grochowiska. Remember her name! This spirited soldier is your guide on a literary journey through time, opening for readers the doors to the homes, mansions, artists’ studios and scientists’ laboratories of her colleagues of different eras. Here we can make the acquaintance of the first woman doctor in Polish history and of a poet who wouldn’t let herself be pushed around. There are painters, enthusiasts, Nobel laureates, architects, war heroines, the Warsaw Mermaid and Simona Kossak, a professor and specialist in deer. And many others.
In Damy, dziewuchy, dziewczyny (Ladies, Wenches, Young Women), the author seduces the reader with her style, with her compelling historical storytelling; you read her stories with unadulterated pleasure. This is a book about women who had the courage to be themselves in difficult moments in history, who fought for access to education and equal rights – sometimes in men’s clothing, such as Maria Komornicka, who one day burned all her dresses and became Piotr Włast, or Zofia Stryjeńska, who, in order to study painting at her dreamt-of academy in Germany, cut her hair short, forged some papers and left Poland in the guise of her own brother, Tadeusz.
The publication is given added character by the cheeky cartoon portraits of these women drawn by illustrator Joanna Rusinek. This is an excellent example of a book for children which is also worthy reading for adults. It reminds us that civil rights – and particularly women’s rights – were never given to us but had to be fought for to be won. This is Anna Dziewit-Meller’s first book written with an eye to our youngest readers – let it not be her last! The book was published by the Znak Publishers.
