Sean Gasper Bye

Confidential follows on the success of acclaimed photographer, psychologist, and writer Mikołaj Grynberg's highly acclaimed short story collection, I'd Like to Say Sorry, but There's No One to Say Sorry To, which was a finalist for numerous awards, including Poland's most prestigious literary prize, the Nike, a National Jewish Book Award, the Sami Rohr Prize, and the National Translation Award in Prose for Sean Gasper Bye's translation.

This powerful new novella is a darkly comic portrait of a Jewish family in today's Poland, struggling to express their love for one another in the face of a past that cannot and will not be forgotten. The grandfather is a doctor, a Holocaust survivor who has now vowed to live only for pleasure. His son, born at the start of the war, becomes a well-respected physicist, but finds himself emotionally unable to attend conferences in Germany, despite the benefit it would give his career. The mother is loving but firm, though she has a secret habit of attending strangers' funerals so that she can cry.

A masterpiece of concision, Confidential expands on one of the stories in I'd Like to Say Sorry . . . , tackling themes of memory and care, trauma and memory, as well as enduring anti-Semitism, with unforgettable power, emotional complexity, and Grynberg's trademark black humor.

The follow up to Łazarewicz's harrowing Żeby Nie Było Śladów (Leave No Trace) depicting the case of the political murder of Grzegorz Przemyk—which earned Łazarewicz the Nike Literary Award in 2017—Did This Hand Kill? focuses on the case of Rita Gorgonowa, a cause célèbre of the interwar period in Poland. 

Gorgonowa, a governess having an affair with her employer, was accused of brutally murdering his daughter, the 17-year-old Lusia on New Year's Eve in 1931. Despite her claims of innocence, Gorgonowa was declared Poland's ultimate villain, and eventually convicted. 

But questions remain about this case—the most notorious murder trial of the Second Polish Republic—along with questions about what exactly happened to Gorgonowa post-World War II. Łazarewicz revisits the crime with a contemporary lens and recreates the furor and celebrity revolving around this murder.

“I’d Like to Say Sorry, but There’s No One to Say Sorry To revisits the plight of the second and third post-Holocaust generations without any documentary constraints. . . . These soliloquies of doubt, grief, rage or sheer bewilderment appear without gloss or commentary, as minimalist micro-dramas. . . . [Mikołaj Grynberg’s] speakers span many stages of life and states of mind, flexibly captured in the salty, speedy English prose of Sean Gasper Bye.”

—Boyd Tonkin, The Wall Street Journal

“Combining the techniques of literary reportage with the analytical tools of Foucault’s archaeology of knowledge, Ryziński has unearthed secret police dossiers and trawled through hundreds of pages of reports filed by undercover cops and snitches. . . . Sean Gasper Bye’s nuanced translation beautifully captures all the language registers, from dry officialese to the flamboyant flourishes in the snitches’ reports and eyewitness accounts.”

—Julia Sherwood, Asymptote Journal

“This ‘people’s history’ comprises intimate views of Ellis Island both from immigrants and from staff, including doctors, social workers, commissioners, and interpreters (among them the future mayor Fiorello LaGuardia). Policies were shaped by anti-Semitism, fear of Communism, and xenophobia, and monthly immigration quotas in the twenties led to ‘a peculiar type of boat race’ in New York Harbor, as ships rushed to deliver their passengers. Szejnert also records the idealism and the compassion of those employed there — such as the social worker who gave new arrivals stylish American clothing — many of whom were immigrants themselves.”

--The New Yorker

Winner of the EBRD Literature Prize awarded by the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development.

A city ignited by hate. A man in thrall to power. The ferociously original award-winning bestseller by Poland's literary phenomenon—his first to be translated into English.

It's 1937. Poland is about to catch fire.

In the boxing ring, Jakub Szapiro commands respect, revered as a hero by the Jewish community. Outside, he instills fear as he muscles through Warsaw as enforcer for a powerful crime lord. Murder and intimidation have their rewards. He revels in luxury, spends lavishly, and indulges in all the pleasures that barbarity offers. For a man battling to be king of the underworld, life is good. Especially when it's a frightening time to be alive.

Hitler is rising. Fascism is escalating. As a specter of violence hangs over Poland like a black cloud, its marginalized and vilified Jewish population hopes for a promise of sanctuary in Palestine. Jakub isn't blind to the changing tide. What's unimaginable to him is abandoning the city he feels destined to rule. With the raging instincts that guide him in the ring and on the streets, Jakub feels untouchable. He must maintain the order he knows—even as a new world order threatens to consume him.