Reality and fiction. The characters of Poles and Germans in the prose of Magdalena Parys Cover Image

Rzeczywistość i fikcja. Postacie Polaków i Niemców w prozie Magdaleny Parys
Reality and fiction. The characters of Poles and Germans in the prose of Magdalena Parys

Author(s): Grażyna Barbara Szewczyk
Subject(s): Cultural history, Social history, Polish Literature, Social Theory, Sociology of Culture, Migration Studies, Theory of Literature, Identity of Collectives, Sociology of Literature
Published by: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Komisji Edukacji Narodowej w Krakowie
Keywords: Magdalena Parys; crime novel; thriller; Poles and Germans; Polish-German relations; Berlin;

Summary/Abstract: The article presents the Trylogia Berlińska [The Berlin Trilogy] by Magdalena Parys, a Polish writer living in Berlin. The series consists of three thrillers (Tunel, 2011; Magik, 2014; Biała Rika, 2016 [Tunnel, Magician, White Rika]) which critics have described as „political thrillers”. In the multi-threaded plots, set both in the contemporary and historical realities (World War II and the immediate post-war period), Polish émigrés, rooted in the Berlin’s metropolitan area, without complexes and pursuing their professional goals play a special role. The Poles include representatives of the middle generation – Germans of Polish descent, policemen, photographers, journalists who investigate vicious and unsolved murder cases. The confrontation of characters of Polish descent with their German peers, whose parents and grandparents live with the trauma of expulsion or of being a victim of Stasi surveillance, makes the reader think about the memory and the problem of German-Polish relations in the 21st century.

  • Issue Year: 2022
  • Issue No: 22
  • Page Range: 236-248
  • Page Count: 13
  • Language: Polish
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