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In the mode of Flights, a novel about the rich stories of small places, from the Nobel Prize-winning, New York Times-bestselling author.
When the narrator of House of Day, House of Night arrives with her husband in a village in remote southwest Poland, she knows no one. Before long, though, she discovers that everyone--and everything—there has a story. With the help of her neighbor, the eccentric Marta, she pieces together the fragments of the living and the dead. There's the drunk Marek Marek, who discovers he shares his body with a bird, and Franz Frost, whose nightmares come to him from a newly discovered planet. There's the man whose death – with one leg on the Polish side, one on the Czech - was an international incident. And there are the German soldiers, not long departed, who still haunt the region. Shard by shard, from the founding of the town to the lives of its saints, these stories capture not only a history but a cosmology.
Another brilliant "constellation novel" in the mode of her Booker-winning Flights, House of Day, House of Night interweaves narrative, musings, history, and mythology, reminding us that the story of any place, no matter how humble, is fascinating and boundless, and awaits any of us with the imagination to seek it.
"[A] rich and pulsating view into life itself...It's a marvel." —Publishers Weekly (starred review)
"As a whole, the book is at once simpler and, at the same time, infinitely more complex than it at first appears. An exquisitely constructed, mercurial gem from the Nobel prizewinner." —Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
"A poetic, rich work of art that ebbs and flows like a stream...Moments of absurdity...mix in with moments of rich emotion, all topped with a swirl of folklore-like magic. A treat for fans of Tokarczuk and literary fiction." —Booklist (starred review)
This information about House of Day, House of Night was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Photo: © Łukasz Giza
Olga Tokarczuk has won the Nobel Prize in Literature and the Man Book International Prize, among many other honors. She is the author of a dozen works of fiction, two collections of essays, and a children's book; her work has been translated into fifty languages.
Link to Olga Tokarczuk's Website
Name Pronunciation
Olga Tokarczuk: tu-KAR-chook
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