SoCultures October 2018
Her eight novels and two short story collections are bestsellers bagging her Polish Publishers ' Association and Kościelski Awards, The Readers ' Choice of the Nike Award four times and many times nomination for the Nike Literary Award. Not only in Poland, she is considered an authority on philosophy and arcane knowledge outside country too. Infact, she is the most critically acclaimed and most translated Polish writers, with titles like“ House of Day”,“ House of Night” and“ Primeval and Other Tales.”
Her short story“ The Ugliest Woman in the World” opens with uncertainty. Tokarczuk’ s strength lies in showing her ugly protagonist as comfortable in her own skin. And her man wonders shouldn’ t such a repulsive creature be clobbering about and sulking and lamenting their fate? He is affronted by her sanguinity. But does he really love her?
The book was included in the Best European Fiction 2011 anthology, an annual anthology of stories from across Europe, published by Dalkey Archive Press.
And the hall of fame kept getting bigger- more awards, honours followed … Tokarczuk’ s work is an original, exhilarating piece of literary fiction; it confronts the subjectivity of human experiences through an artistic lens.“ International Dublin Literary Award”,“ Medal for Merit to Culture – Gloria Artis”, and other highly prestigious awards among many others followed. Two movies are made based on her books – one is Pokot( Spoor), a 2017 Polish crime film,( based on the book, " Drive Your Plough Over the Bones of the Dead "). In the novel, she toys with the genre of suspense and addressing the behavior angle between humans and animals. Set in the scenic surroundings of mountains, it is about an elderly woman, Janina Duszejko, turns witness to a violent and mysterious death of several hunters. Interesting, isn’ t it? Her winning novel at Booker Prize is a kaleidoscopic account of travel and human anatomy set over several titles.“ Flights”, the book is not a travel book but a study of psychology of travel. The book’ s title is based on the name of a sect which believed that continuous moving helped redeem the soul and keep away the dark evils.
119 | P a g e