The Polish Book Institute

Małgorzata Łukasiewicz, translator of German-language literature, literary critic and essayist, talks about a wild yearning resulting from reading real literature, the pleasures of reading without commitment, the fun of re-reading books, the love of Lalka (“The Doll”); she also explains why the title of Süskind's Das Perfum reads Pachnidło (“Scent”) in Polish and why books are like people.

The author of such novels as Tylko Lola (”No-one but Lola”), Rozwiązła (”Promiscuous”), or the latest Psy pożrą ciało Jezebel (”Dogs Will Devour Jezebel’s Body'”) doesn’t talk this time about the books he's written, but about the ones he reads. It turns out that Jarosław Kamiński has recently had on his reading list mainly items devoted to the climate crisis, he likes to look for books in wastepaper centres, and he values above all literary nonconformism and the work of Marcel Proust.