Like many former Eastern Bloc countries, Poland has seen a tremendous amount of change in the last several decades. Many of the titles included in this list speak to the experiences of those in Poland working their way through these major shifts. With this list, you can learn more about Poland’s literary landscape, read about the ties between Chicago and Poland, or watch one of the country’s many award-winning movies.
Fiction
The Lullaby of Polish Girls – Dagmara Domińczyk
“Because of her father’s role in the Solidarity movement, Anna and her parents immigrate to the United States in the 1980s as political refugees from Poland. They settle in Brooklyn among immigrants of every stripe, yet Anna never quite feels that she belongs. But then, the summer she turns twelve, she is sent back to Poland to visit her grandmother, and suddenly she experiences the shock of recognition. In her family’s hometown of Kielce, Anna develops intense friendships with two local girls–brash and beautiful Justyna and desperately awkward Kamila–and their bond is renewed every summer when Anna returns.”
Swallowing Mercury – Wioletta Grzegorzewska
“While political change hums in the background, Wiola looks back on her youth in a close-knit agricultural community in 1980s Poland: the superstitions of the village women, rumored visits from the Pope, and the locked room in the dressmaker’s house.”
Swimming in the Dark – Tomasz Jedrowski
“When university student Ludwik meets Janusz at a summer agricultural camp, he is fascinated yet wary of this handsome, carefree stranger. But a chance meeting by the river soon becomes an intense, exhilarating, and all-consuming affair. After their camp duties are fulfilled, the pair spend a dreamlike few weeks camping in the countryside, removed from society and its constraints, Ludwik and Janusz fall deeply in love. Once they return to Warsaw, the charismatic Janusz quickly rises in the political ranks while Ludwik is drawn toward impulsive acts of protest, unable to ignore rising food prices and the stark economic disparity around them. Their secret love and personal and political differences slowly begin to tear them apart as both men struggle to survive in a regime on the brink of collapse.”
Mrs. Mohr Goes Missing – Maryla Szymiczkowa
“Kracow, 1893. Zofia Turbotyńska–professor’s wife and socialite–is bored at home, with little to do besides planning a charity auction sponsored by the wealthy residents of a local nursing home and the nuns who work there. But when one of those residents is found dead, Zofia finds a calling: solving crimes. Ridiculed by the police, who have declared the death of natural causes, she starts her own murder investigation, unbeknownst to anyone but her loyal cook Franciszka and one reluctant nun. With her husband blissfully unaware of her secret, Zofia remakes herself into Kracow’s greatest–or at the very least, most surprising–amateur detective.”
Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead – Olga Tokarczuk
“When her neighbor turns up dead, and then other bodies turn up under strange circumstances, Janine, a recluse in a remote Polish village who prefers the company of animals over humans, inserts herself into the investigation, certain she knows whodunit.”
King of Warsaw – Szczepan Twardoch
“A city ignited by hate. A man in thrall to power. It’s 1937. Poland is about to catch fire. In the boxing ring, Jakub Szapiro commands respect, revered as a hero by the Jewish community. Outside, he instills fear as he muscles through Warsaw as enforcer for a powerful crime lord. Murder and intimidation have their rewards. He revels in luxury, spends lavishly, and indulges in all the pleasures that barbarity offers. Hitler is rising. Fascism is escalating. As a specter of violence hangs over Poland like a black cloud, its marginalized and vilified Jewish population hopes for a promise of sanctuary in Palestine. Jakub isn’t blind to the changing tide. What’s unimaginable to him is abandoning the city he feels destined to rule.”
Non-Fiction
Fresh from Poland: New Vegetarian Cooking from the Old Country – Michał Korkosz
“There’s so much more to Polish food than kielbasa and schnitzel: Poland is home to beautiful fruits, vegetables, and grains–and a rich cooking tradition that makes the most of them. In Fresh from Poland, Saveur award winner Michał Korkosz celebrates recipes from his mother and grandmother–with modern, personal touches and gorgeous photos that capture his passion for cooking. Vegetables are his stars, but Michał doesn’t shy away from butter, flour, and sugar.”
American Warsaw: The Rise, Fall, and Rebirth of Polish Chicago – Dominic Pacyga
“Chronicles more than a century of immigration, and later emigration back to Poland, showing how the community has continually redefined what it means to be Polish in Chicago.”
Movies
Cold War (2018)
“This sweeping, delirious romance begins in the Polish countryside, where Wiktor, a musician on a state-sponsored mission to collect folk songs, discovers a captivating young singer named Zula. Over the next fifteen years, their turbulent relationship will play out in stolen moments between two worlds: the jazz clubs of decadent, bohemian Paris, to which he defects, and the corrupt, repressive Communist Bloc, where she remains, universes bridged by their passion for music and for each other.”
Corpus Christi (2019)
“After spending years in a Warsaw prison for a violent crime, twenty-year-old Daniel is released and sent to a remote village to work as a manual laborer. The job is designed to keep the ex-con busy, but Daniel has a higher calling. While in prison, he found Christ and aspires to join the clergy, but his criminal record means no seminary will accept him. When Daniel arrives in town, one quick lie allows him to be mistaken for the town’s new priest, and he sets about leading his newfound flock.”
Ida (2016)
“A moving and intimate drama about a young novitiate nun in 1960s Poland who, on the verge of taking her vows, discovers a dark family secret dating from the terrible years of the Nazi occupation.”
In Darkness (2011)
“Leopold Socha, a sewer worker and petty thief in Lvov, a Nazi-occupied city in Poland, one day encounters a group of Jews trying to escape the liquidation of the ghetto. He hides them for money in the labyrinth of the town’s sewers beneath the bustling activity of the city above. What starts out as a straightforward and cynical business arrangement turns into something very unexpected: the unlikely alliance between Socha and the Jews as the enterprise seeps deeper into Socha’s conscience. Based on a true story.”
Squint Your Eyes (2004)
“The story of a spirited ten-year-old girl who has run away from her proudly affluent parents in town and finds grudging refuge with the slightly slovenly caretaker of an abandoned farm, an ex-teacher.”
