Unwillingly Orientalist: Gustaw Herling-Grudziński’s Travel Diary to Burma as an Example of an Unusual Postcolonial Eastern European Account
Unwillingly Orientalist: Gustaw Herling-Grudziński’s Travel Diary to Burma as an Example of an Unusual Postcolonial Eastern European Account

Summary/Abstract: This article explores Gustaw Herling-Grudziński’s largely forgotten travel diary “A Journey to Burma.” It argues that the strategy Herling-Grudziński employed to describe the postcolonial world was a unique one. It did not belong to the “socialist postcolonialism” narrative, nor was it a part of Western orientalist discourse. HerlingGrudziński’s Eastern European past and identity deeply influenced his account. Despite some simplification, he was able to summarize Burmese reality surprisingly accurately. The article claims that Herling-Grudziński’s travelogue represents a new angle to the narrative of the relations between Eastern European people of letters and inhabitants of colonized countries.

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