Andrzej Stasiuk is one of the brightest new literary talents to emerge in East and Central Europe since the fall of communism. Novelist, essayist, playwright, and public intellectual, Stasiuk has carved out a place for himself as a highly original thinker and stylist, conveying the bittersweet realities of the “New Europe” with grace, irony, and insight. His work has been widely translated throughout Europe; four of his books have been made available in English, including Tales of Galicia (2003), Nine (2007) and Fado (2009) (the last two translated by our collaborator Bill Johnston of Indiana University).

Andrzej Stasiuk, who is travelling on this U.S. tour with his wife, Monika Sznajderman the acclaimed publisher of Czarne Publishing House, will read from his work in Polish and in English translation, and will discuss his writing in the context of present-day Poland and Central and Eastern Europe. He will be accompanied by his wife, Monika Sznajderman, publisher of Wydanictwo Czarne, one of Poland’s premier literary presses.

This event marks Andrzej Stasiuk’s first appearance in the U.S.; from Bloomington he travels to New York to take part in the opening reading of the PEN World Voices Festival, alongside such writers as Salman Rushdie and Patti Smith.

“Stasiuk’s prose soars” Irvine Welsh, New York Times Book Review

“Stasiuk, exploring a region that so many have assumed to be irresistibly converging with the West, has mapped what Freud might have called its ‘genetic memory.’” Benjamin Moser, Harper’s Magazine