Bookshelf 2020

The text presents major and the most interesting Polish prose and poetry books published in 2020 in order to review the state of the Polish publishing industry last year and to attempt to answer the question whether the coronavirus pandemic has somehow affected writers, poets, and publishers. The article also asks what type of fiction was most likely to be published and which writers and poets were most popular with reviewers. It briefly analyses and interprets ten prose and poetry books, showing also how other commentators of contemporary literary life have written about them. The selection of books to be discussed is therefore based not so much on the author’s subjective feelings as on reception. The aim of the text is also to underline the diversity of these publications and to show the most popular creative trends. The authors discussed include: Joanna Bator, Konrad Góra, Wioletta Grzegorzewska, Hanna Krall, Natalia Malek, Krystyna Miłobędzka, Marta Podgórnik, Zyta Rudzka, Szczepan Twardoch, and Patrycja Sikora. In most cases, these are authors who are well known to the Polish reading public and who either announced their new books or offered selections of their previous work. The compilation proves that readers (including “professional” ones) especially appreciated those works in which the authors attempted to consolidate shattered identities, returned to a traumatic past in an attempt to order the “here and now”, or discussed communication problems, as well as those stories that could be described as socially engaged. The text is located within the disciplines of literary studies and literary criticism