Piotr Paziński

Author, literary critic, essayist, translator, and journalist for the daily newspaper “Gazeta Wyborcza” (1992-1997), editor-in-chief of the monthly “Midrasz”. He studied philosophy at the University of Warsaw. In 2005 he received the title of Doctor of Humanities in literature for his monograph on James Joyce’s Ulysses, entitled Labirynt i drzewo [A Labyrinth and a Tree], completed under the tutelage of Michał Głowiński. He is the author of a personal guidebook, “Dublin z Ulissesem” [Dublin with Ulysses] (2008). He is known as the creator of the talked-about “Pensjonat” – hailed by critics as the first voice of the third generation after the Holocaust. The book was nominated to the NIKE awards, and the author received the “Paszport Polityki” award (2009). In his debut novel, he told of his return to the country of his childhood, to a pensjonat near Warsaw – a Jewish holiday house, in which as a child he had spent his vacations with his grandmother. This place, once brimming with life, is now inhabited by ghosts of the past. Paziński resurrects the past for a moment, triggering the mechanisms of memory, and then tells the story of his ancestors. He makes use of the rich literary tradition – difficult memory claims as its own incessant references to the works of Thomas Mann and Bruno Schulz. “Pensjonat” is a philosophical tale of survival and ephemerality – full of irony and humour.

On October 20 Piotr Paziński will host a meeting with Amos Oz. He will also take part in a discussion on the subject of Isaac Cylkow – famed Polish rabbi and translator of the Hebrew Bible into Polish.