The Polish Book Institute

In the Czech Republic, a book by Marcin Wicha Rzeczy, których nie wyrzuciłem (“Things I Didn’t Throw Out”), awarded with the Polityka Passport Award and the Witold Gombrowicz Literary Award, has just been published. The book was translated by Barbora Kolouchova. The publication was supported by the Book Institute as part of the ©POLAND Translation Programme.

The novel Věci, kterých jsem se nezbavil, as reads the title of the Czech translation, has been published by a large Prague-based ARGO publishing house.

What remains after the death of a loved one? Items, memories, fragments of sentences? The narrator sorts books and things left behind by his late mother. At the same time, he reconstructs her image - a strong woman who was able to live according to her own rules in the communist and then capitalist reality. Sensitive to words, she did not allow herself to be manipulated, in her daily fight for respect - she did not give up. She was difficult. She was brave.

There is no sentimentalism in this book – the author’s mother hated it - but tenderness, smile, and an attempt to understand the fate of those closest to us. There is also the story of how the first post-war generation, to whom a beautiful life was promised, begins to pass away.

Things I Didn’t Throw Out was also nominated for the Nike Literary Award and the Gdynia Literary Award, and it also received Nike Audience Award.