Medallions (book)

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Medallions
Author Zofia Nałkowska
Original title Medaliony
Translator Diana Kuprel; Zofia Nałkowska
Country United States
Language English
Genre(s) Documentary
Publisher Northwestern University Press
Publication date 1946
Published in
English

Feb 1999
Media type Print (Paperback)
Pages 49
ISBN ISBN 0-8101-1743-6

Medallions (the original Polish title: Medaliony) is a book consisting of eight short stories by the Polish author Zofia Nałkowska.

The book was originally published in 1946, soon after the end of the World War II. In it, Nałkowska calmly related selected stories of Nazi atrocities in Poland and the fates of their victims. Nałkowska was a member of a special committee for the investigation of Nazi crimes in Poland, therefore she had learned facts directly from the victims and witnesses.

Considered a masterpiece of antifascist world literature, Medallions (written in 1945 and first published in 1946) stands as the culmination of Nalkowska's literary style -- a style that the Polish writer Witold Gombrowicz once described as "the iron capital of her art and one of the very few exportables in our national literature." Written in documentary-narrative form, with simple, concise, severely elegant prose, the book gives voice to the experience of victims and witnesses of the Nazi genocide.
Northwestern University Press[1]

Part of the text was published in English in the Introduction to Modern Polish Literature edited by Adam Gillon and Ludwik Krzyżanowski, before the complete edition was made available by the Northwestern University Press in 1999.

[edit] References

  • Northwestern University Press, Medallions, Zofia Nalkowska: "a masterpiece of antifascist world literature." [2]
  • Introduction to Modern Polish Literature (Paperback) by Adam Gillon (Editor), including review. [3]
  • The original Polish title: Medaliony, ISBN 0-8101-1743-6.

[edit] See also

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