Keynote
The debut novel of a hugely popular and
award-winning Polish writer. A courageous
and difficult story, dealing with complex
and important matters: paedophilia,
school pathologies, the destructive
influence of moral hypocrisy.
Selling Points
 A topical novel – despite the era the book
is set in – about difficult and extremely
important social problems – both in
the Polish and the global context.
 The author has managed to retain
lightness of the form and irony in her
portrayal of the protagonists, without
diminishing the gravity of the issues.
 Compelling and complex psychological
portraits – particularly of women from
various generations trying to build family
relationships anew.
 The difficult, controversial topic of
paedophilia in schools.
 An analysis of the toxic influence of
devotional religiosity on both children’s
and adults’ lives.
 The story is set in Silesia, a remarkable,
multicultural, and heterogenous region
of Poland with a complicated history.
The author shows it in a multi-dimensional
way, including completely new topics and
contexts. Silesian identity is still crying
out for new stories.

 This is the novel that established
the author’s place in Polish literature.
 Dziewit-Meller is a well-known and
highly-regarded writer in Poland,
in addition to being an extremely
recognisable media figure – she publishes
columns, curates a videoblog about
literature, and is also the author of a very
popular series of children’s books Ladies
and Girls.
Description
The beginning of the 1990s, Poland
begins the complicated process of
political transformation after the fall
of communism, Ace of Base blasts from
speakers and girls find out what love
is from the show Beverly Hills 90 210.
Agnieszka, a year seven schoolgirl,
is growing up in Silesia without
a mother, with a largely absent father,
in the cramped flat of her obsessively
religious grandmother. When a new dance
instructor, Paweł Kozioł, appears, the girl
cannot believe at first that this charismatic
and mysterious adult man is showing
special interest in her, a quite average girl.
Target Market
Readers of ambitious women’s writing.
Lovers of detailed and nuanced
psychological novels.
People interested iin the twentieth-century
history of Poland.