The latest book by Iwona Chmielewska – author of numerous literary successes, among others Eyes/Oczy, which was awarded a Bologna Ragazzi Award (the 'illustrator's Oscar') – is at the same time a gesture towards German culture and a story about European history and identity. The publishing house calls it ‘a thinking alphabet’, enriched by the linguistic context of French, English and Polish, which makes it a universal publication and accessible to readers of all ages. It sucks you into an intellectual game which is entertaining due to its associations. Justyna Sobolewska recommends the book to adults rather than children in Polityka:
Mainly adults will appreciate the subtle allusions and sense of humour. The new book is an illustrated Polish-French-English-German dictionary and at the same time a tribute to German culture. It is adults who will notice the word play in these collages, like Leipzig and Leibniz. Or the two men from Friedrich’s painting, who are walking away into the fog on the page marked ‘holidays’, or Rilke with a rose. Children on the other hand can enjoy the amazing illustrations much like a 19th-century German encyclopaedia. You can also treat this book as an introduction to art, and all in four languages at once.
As the publishing house stresses, the book is deliberately published in Wrocław – a city with a multicultural tradition, whose German history was suppressed by inhabitants for decades, yet is indeed permanently present in the urban tissue.
Author: AL., July 2015, Translated by: Zuzanna Wiśniewska, July 2015