Unspeakable – Pain and the Palliative Aspect of Literature (Leo Lipski’s Piotruś [Little Peter])

This article deals with the issue of the articulation of pain in Leo Lipski’s Piotruś [Little Peter]. In Lipski’s novel suffering is rarely direct, but is rather a sensation evoked by another’s perception (the oppressive gaze), cultural exclusion of disabled bodies and the dramatic experience of the disintegration of reality and language itself (as the medium of interpersonal communication and understanding). On this background the author presents the palliative conceptualization of literature (revealing itself in Lipski’s micro-novel), in which the emphasis is not exactly on the possibility of essential (re)presentation of pain, but on the relieving potential of the textual transposition (translation) of sensations and feelings