House of Day, House of Night
Olga Tokarczuk
Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones
A woman settles in a remote Polish village. It has few inhabitants, now, but it teems with the stories of its living and its dead. There’s the drunk Marek Marek, who discovers that he shares his body with a bird, and Franz Frost, whose nightmares come to him from a newly discovered planet. There’s the man whose death—with one leg on the Polish side, one on the Czech—was an international incident. And there are the Germans who still haunt a region that not long ago they called their own. From the founding of the town to the lives of its saints, these shards piece together not only a history but a cosmology.
Another brilliant ‘constellation novel’ in the mode of her International Booker Prize–winning Flights, House of Day, House of Night reminds us that the story of any place, no matter how humble, is boundless.
INTERVIEWS and REVIEWS
ABC Radio National: The Bookshelf
New Zealand Listener
Readings
andHouse of Day, House of Night
‘Darkly humorous, deadly serious, and with a quirky cast of characters that will stay with you forever, this is definitely not to be missed.’
‘House of Day, House of Night is packed with chewy philosophical ideas and spellbinding images.’
‘The language in this novel is incredible. I found myself frequently putting the book down for a moment just to think about a particular word or phrase. This is my first Tokarczuk novel and I am thrilled to discover a writing style I love so much. I am going to read all Tokarczuk’s work that I can get my hands on.’
‘This is a very accessible place to start with Olga—the stories are lyrical and flowing while we spend our time learning about the different villagers, their connections to each other, who would we would be if we weren’t people, and the conflicts of existence and inhabiting the world.’
‘It is certainly a treat for the sheer number of flights of imagination and the creation of a small community of fascinating characters’
‘If you’re not familiar with Tokarczuk’s fiction, don’t put off any longer an encounter with the profound mystery at the heart of her work—and at the heart of yourself.’
‘I was utterly enraptured by the mushrooming magic of Tokarczuk’s landscape…’
‘It is a mesmerising showcase of Tokarczuk’s skills… she has brought together her own galaxy of compelling case histories and the result is unfailingly revealing.’
‘Tokarczuk employs a deceptively simple prose that carries the weight of complex ideas… one of the most original and daring voices in contemporary European literature.’
