A Testimony or a Creation? About the Book Mama zawsze wraca [Mama Always Returns] by Agata Tuszyńska and Iwona Chmielewska

The aim of the article is to consider whether Agata Tuszyńska and Iwona Chmielewska’s publication is a literary redefinition of the act of testimony. The author analyzes the relationship between text and image, at the same time referring to the life-writing trend. Moreover, the author raises questions about the relationship between the borrowed past and collective memory. In the article, the author also draws attention to the creation of a child’s perspective, which is mainly generated through the mother tongue. The parent is the only person who creates the imaginary synthesis of the individual elements of Polish culture in miniature. Therefore, the author analyzes the stylization aspect of Tuszyńska’s story on the child’s perception, which often turns out to be simultaneously inscribing the extreme situation into the space of a fairy tale