Światy bizarne Olgi Tokarczuk
The Bizarre Worlds of Olga Tokarczuk

Summary/Abstract: The article takes up the theme of truth andmystery based on two “bizarre” storiesby Olga Tokarczuk: “Transfugium” and “Calendar of Human Holidays.”The referenceis made to other issues of interest important for the author ofThe Flights: they includeeco- and gynocritical threads, evident in “Transfugium,” which tells, among other things,about the pitfalls of the anthropocentric position and the suggested exit in the formof the metamorphosis of humans into animals, specifically into a wolf. In the secondof the analyzed stories, the focus is on the place of religion, the Church and faith in ourlives, including faith in revealed truth and a miracle, and on how it may lead to a reeval-uation of patterns and dogmas imposed by the institution of the Church, also in termsof the place of women in the established order by Church hierarchs. Although the focusofmy attention remains on Tokarczuk ’s two short stories, I alsomake contextual referencesto the works of the Hungarian writer SándorMárai and to the short story of Gustaw Her-ling-Grudziński, who, in a sense, dialogue with each other on the issue of understandingtruth,mystery, and the human need formiracle, and thus probably unintentionally referto Tokarczuk ’s futurological reflection.

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