Schavelzon Graham Agencia literaria Barcelona

The Polish Lover

NOVEL. SEIX BARRAL, 2019. 405 PAGES

Elena Poniatowska's most personal and ambitious novel yet

It's 1743 and as he listens carefully to accounts of his family's historic feats, Stanislaw journeys through a breathtaking winter landscape in the company of his mother. Her passion for Catherine the Great and the Poniatowskas' turbulent rise to the throne of Poland are a long way behind them. Two centuries later, at the age of 10, Elena watches the snow fall in Paris for the last time. A long journey to Mexico, the homeland of her mother Paula Amor, lies ahead as they flee the war tearing Europe apart.

The first part of The Polish Lover is a fascinating journey through two different time periods: the European courts of the 18th Century and the bustling Mexico City of the 1950s with its palace intrigues, literary salons, forbidden loves and a life dedicated to writing full of intense but painful peaks and troughs.

Elena Poniatowska, winner of the 2013 Cervantes Prize, has written her most personal novel yet: intimate language and emotion come together in an epic tale of a kingdom on the cusp of disappearing. This masterpiece reaffirms the author's extraordinary narrative talent and originality.

«Poniatowska mixes documentation and imagination with virtuosity, elaborates a moving reconstruction of her ancestor's life and narrates her own life trajectory without sentimentality. [...] The book also functions as a memoir in which the author tells, with clear and evocative prose, very vivid, her greatest secret.»

Rosa Martí, El Confidencial

PUBLISHED BY: Spanish worldwide SEIX BARRAL