NIKE PRIZE 2022 - SHORTLIST

ART RAGE LITERARY PRIZE 2022 - SHORTLIST (BEST FICTION)

Keynote

A generational novel about the beauty and bitterness of Europe, as experienced by young Polish emigrants throughout the European Union.

Selling Points
 A multi-narrative novel about a generation of young Poles who’ve emigrated to Western Europe in search of a better life.
 The first book that thoroughly and uniquely summarizes Polish and Eastern European experiences through the last  twenty years of globalization.
 A portrait of the Western European through run-down neighborhoods, cheap apartments, and the lowest-paid jobs.
 A brutal and honest story about the Poland of small towns and provincial communities.
 The 2008 financial crisis from the perspective of low-paid immigrants.
 Brilliant, sensitive, and honest language – a record of the real experiences of today’s thirty-somethings.
 The author is the most significant and widely awarded writer of her generation.

Description

For the novel’s protagonists, modern-day thirty-somethings, life hasn’t turned out how they once hoped it would. In the early days of the 21st century, the world seemed open – happiness was right there, all they had to do was reach out and grab it. Poland had just joined the EU, the global economy was flourishing, and it seemed like if you knew some foreign languages and had a decent education you could conquer the world. But soon enough they were brutally acquainted with reality.
Overworked and underpaid, living six to a flat in cramped, dilapidated buildings, and ever homesick – such experiences have left a lasting mark on this generation of EU emigrants. Today, back in Poland andtrying to figure out their lives as adults, it’s none too easy: Polish provincial life was not especially cushy even before
the pandemic. On top of everything, there are family issues. When the person closest to the protagonists suffers a stroke and becomes bedridden, these young adults must redefine their values and return to the ties that bond them – otherwise, they’ll fall apart in a cold and hostileworld.

Praise
Cieplak writes in such a way that we can slip into the hearts of her characters and feel their despair, while at the same
time she’s able to tell the story without removing all hope.
Justyna Sobolewska, Polityka

Above all, it’s a current and very good story about the mental state of Upper Silesia after years of transformation,
horrendous restructuring, and constant doubt about what it means to be a region imprisoned with its language, culture, and
society in a country that offers it a worse
path for development than any of its other regions.
Jarosław Czechowicz, Krytycznym okiem

The book’s greatest strength seems to me its author’s skill for sharp, sociological observations of changes in society. Because this ‘fading away’ also marks the end of traditional mining families, the consequences of economicimmigration or the possibility of fleeing into the world, an uncertain and by no means unambiguous social advancement,
increasing precarization, a change in relationship patterns, and the generation of the young, which is already different
from those that came before.
Kinga Dunin, Krytyka Polityczna

Target Market
Readers of novels in translation.
Readers of ambitious contemporary iterature.
People interested in the society and culture of contemporary Eastern Europe.