A Warsaw Diary. 1978-1981

Over The Past Few Years Innumerable Books Have Been Written About Contemporary Poland; Yet Even The Best Of Them Have Been Essentially Journalistic Works, Written By Sympathetic Outsiders And Doomed To Be Quickly Overtaken By Events. A Warsaw Diary Is A Very Different Kind Of Book: Subtle, Profound, A Work Of Outstanding – And Permanent – Literary Merit By One Of Poland’s Foremost Writers. Denounced On Polish Television After The Imposition Of Martial Law As A Subversive Document – Possession Of Which Carried An Automatic Prison Sentence Of Up To Ten Years – It Is At Once A Powerful, Wide-ranging Personal Memoir, And The First Eye-witness Account Of The Momentous Events Of 1978-81 To Set Them In Their Historical And Political Context, Subtly Alternating Between Present-day Poland And Her Melancholy, Overshadowed History And Literary Or Philosophical Reflections On The Polish Character And Temperament. Whether He Is Discussing The Role Of The Church, Continuing Anti-semitism, The German Occupation Or The Stalinist Years, Or Describing With A Novelist’s Eye The Drab, Interminable Queues In A Warsaw Street Or Thugs Breaking Up The Dissident ‘flying University’, Brandys’s Diary Is A Unique, Compelling Account Of The Polish Spirit And The Polish Dilemma.