Keynote
This outstanding poet – a master of
allusion, acute observations and unique
sense of humour – returns with a book
of poetic prose.

Selling Points
 One of the most important female Polish
poets of the twentieth and twenty-first
centuries.
 Sophisticated and remarkably mature
poetic prose.
 A suspicious approach to language like
Szymborska’s, and an acuity in making
diagnoses worthy of Miłosz.
 Cloaked in a historical costume,
a reflection on the spiritual condition of
contemporariness.
 A remarkably compelling and original
transposition into literary language of
Bach’s brilliant work.
Description
It is said Johann Sebastian Bach wrote
the Goldberg Variations as a remedy
for Count von Keyserling’s insomnia.
Paraphrasing the composer, Ewa
Lipska here creates her own Geldberg
Variations, which differ from the original
by just one letter, whose central motif
is the eponymous character of Geldberg.
It is also subjected to a host of equally
enchanting poetic variations, and
in addition, following in Count von

Keyserling’s footsteps, confronts
the “breathlessness of the night”.
It is often said of Lipska that she
is the “twentieth century’s last great
female poet”. That is doubtless true – she
made her debut in the nineteen-sixties
with the New Wave generation
and followed with attention and
anxiety the turbulent socio-political
transformations of subsequent decades.
But anyone who thinks she has nothing
left to say about contemporary times
would be in error.
The new book by the inestimable Ewa
Lipska presents us with a very unlikely
literary character, who loves his homeland,
is fascinated by the world and likes
to read unwritten books. Geldberg
muses about the Church and the Edenic
Diet he has begun, and also about royal
funerals, which in unabashed fantasy
he experiments with in front of the mirror.
Each subsequent “variation” about him,
occasionally astonishing and impacting
on the reader with extraordinary
force, remains endearingly honest, and
the protagonist gains our sympathy,
although actually we don’t learn anything
certain about him. For the question of who
Geldberg is, is an open existential and
philosophical question.

Target Market
Lovers of poetry and poetic prose.
People interested in ambitious literature,
in particular Polish literature.