On the Road to Babadag by Andrzej Stasiuk
'The heart of my Europe,' he writes 'beats in Sokolow, Podlaskie and in Husi, not in Vienna.' 'Where did Moldova end and Transylvania begin,' he wonders, as he is being driven at breakneck speed in a hundred-year-old Audi - loose wires hanging from the dashboard - by a driver in shorts and bare feet, a cross swinging on his chest.
Stasiuk is one of Poland's best-known contemporary authors and On the Road to Babadag is a welcome addition to his growing English-language corpus...Unfailingly stimulating and ably translated by Michael Kandel -- Toby Lichtig * Times Literary Supplement *
Stasiuk's journeys are vivid poetry... What formally also underpins Stasiuk's travels, and rather beautifully embodies his resistance to the future, is how his prose communicates the working of memory, mirroring its inconsequentiality. His accounts are fragmented, shuffled, continued later or not. Time breaks down as it is past; in his mind events cover space and time in an even, translucent layer -- Julian Evans * Prospect *
Now English readers can enjoy the rewards of Stasiuk's entrancing attempt to stand in the way of progress. It's an exceptional writer who can rise to such an impossible challenge * Independent *
A eulogy for the old Europe, the Europe both in and out of time, the Europe now lost in the folds of the map, On the Road to Babadag is valuable reading for UK readers. If we can't read our way around Europe, how will we ever find our place, our identity, within it? * Guardian *
At once powerful, punkish, angry, and disorientating in its quest to probe into Europe's dirty laundry * Scotland on Sunday *
Stasiuk's journeys are vivid poetry... What formally also underpins Stasiuk's travels, and rather beautifully embodies his resistance to the future, is how his prose communicates the working of memory, mirroring its inconsequentiality. His accounts are fragmented, shuffled, continued later or not. Time breaks down as it is past; in his mind events cover space and time in an even, translucent layer -- Julian Evans * Prospect *
Now English readers can enjoy the rewards of Stasiuk's entrancing attempt to stand in the way of progress. It's an exceptional writer who can rise to such an impossible challenge * Independent *
A eulogy for the old Europe, the Europe both in and out of time, the Europe now lost in the folds of the map, On the Road to Babadag is valuable reading for UK readers. If we can't read our way around Europe, how will we ever find our place, our identity, within it? * Guardian *
At once powerful, punkish, angry, and disorientating in its quest to probe into Europe's dirty laundry * Scotland on Sunday *
Born in Warsaw in 1960, Andrzej Stasiuk has risen to become one of the most important and interesting writers at work in Eastern Europe today. Author of over a dozen books and winner of many prizes, he came to writing in an unusual way: in the early 1980s, he deserted the army and spent a year and a half in prison for it. Afterwards he wrote a collection of short stories, The Walls of Hebron, about his experience, which became a huge success. He and his wife, Monika Sznajderman, run a small publishing house in Czarne.
| SKU | Unavailable |
| ISBN 13 | 9781846550546 |
| ISBN 10 | 1846550548 |
| Title | On the Road to Babadag |
| Author | Andrzej Stasiuk |
| Condition | Unavailable |
| Binding Type | Hardback |
| Publisher | Vintage Publishing |
| Year published | 2011-07-14 |
| Number of pages | 272 |
| Cover note | Book picture is for illustrative purposes only, actual binding, cover or edition may vary. |
| Note | Unavailable |