Past events

LAST IN THE CHAIN OF GENERATIONS: Jewish memory and the fiction of Piotr Pazinski

Wednesday, November 19, 2014, at 7:00pm

The Kosciuszko Foundation and the Polish Cultural Institute New York present:

Admission: Free of charge

Award-winning author of two novels, a Joyce scholar, and editor of the journal Midrasz, Piotr Pazinski is considered a leading author of the third generation of Jewish writers after the Holocaust. Through his stature as a public figure and now through his fiction writing, Pazinski has been a key voice shaping the discussion about Poland's Jewish past, present and future. With his books unpublished so far in English, this evening of bilingual readings and discussions will offer a unique look at Pazinski's writing and his perspective on contemporary debates around Jewishness in Poland.

Pazinski's lyrical writing, strongly influenced by Bruno Schultz, makes him one of the most vital voices in Poland today. Pazinski will be interviewed by Agnieszka Legutko, lecturer in Yiddish at Columbia University, and his translator Tusia Dabrowska. 

The night will also feature excerpts from Adam Zucker's new documentary The Return, about the Jewish cultural revival in Poland, featuring Pazinski and Dabrowska. 

My past lies deep inside me, but whenever I try to reach it, I come upon a hollowed-out void, as if I'd been born yesterday, and everything that happened before then was just a jumble of shadowy images, decomposed and scattered into atomic specks. ... The pressure of these accumulated images creates the illusion of memory, and just like lots and lots of photographs, becomes a substitute for life. - Piotr Pazinski

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