THE POLKA: What’s Riveting in Polish Literature with Anna Blasiak. ZYTA RUDZKA and shoes for the coffin
When I first read Zyta Rudzka last year it was a revelation. And Zyta Rudzka remains a revelation. From the moment I looked at the first pages of her (multi award-winning) novel Kto się śmieje, ten ma zęby (Only Those with Teeth Can Smile, published in Polish in 2022), I couldn’t stop. I couldn’t stop reading, laughing, gasping, marvelling at her wonderfully inventive, gritty, meaty and terse language which hits you as a reader with a striking force and leaves you breathless. I also couldn’t stop trying to translate bits on the spot to share with my non-Polish-speaking wife. And, let me add, that’s a very difficult task, if only because of Rudzka’s language; I simply had to share this book, such a true literary feat! It’s been a while since words on the page grabbed me with such vehemence, dug their claws into me deep, deep and didn’t let go until the very last page. And then, as soon as I finished the book, I started reading it again from the beginning. The breadth of Rudzka’s metaphors, her use of symbols and archetypes, her pluckiness, her vivid humour and the way she talks about aging, about erotic desire, about poverty – it’s simply astounding and quite bewildering. Perhaps she managed to develop this language, the language that is only hers, that is absolutely and wonderfully unique, because she started as a poet? Perhaps that is why her stories take place against such sketchy backdrops in the loosely defined “here-everywhere-nowhere” kind of place? Who knows.
There is no doubt that Only Those with Teeth Can Smile is a literary rollercoaster ride like nothing I’ve read before. It’s a story of Wera, a barber, looking for good shoes for the coffin for her newly deceased jockey of a husband, and in the process revisiting her life and past loves… As you can tell, I adore this book, its panache and bravery, and can’t wait to see it in English. It’s on its way, you’ll be happy to hear. And it is the wonderful Polish translator Antonia Lloyd-Jones who is translating it, thank goodness, as it’s indeed a tall order, finding the English equivalent for Rudzka’s rugged, strapping, one-of-a-kind, daredevil language. I found a little taster online.
There is, however, one novel of Rudzka’s that already exists in English. That is Ślicznotka Doktora Josefa, which, in Antonia Lloyd-Jones’s translation, is Dr. Josef’s Little Beauty, and was published this year by Seven Stories. It’s about the Holocaust, about old age and the role played by pliable imagination in dealing with painful past and memories, by turning them inside out and making them more bearable. The main protagonists are twin sisters, Leokadia and Helena, who live in a retirement home somewhere near Warsaw. As children they were in a Nazi concentration camp. Helena was saved from extermination by Josef Mengele, the doctor infamous for experimenting on twins. Helena’s memories of Dr. Mengele are tinged with admiration and love for the man. She also feels a sense of superiority over other prisoners from having been Mengele’s chosen patient. Antonia Lloyd-Jones’s translation of Ślicznotka… captures the spirit and quirkiness of the original with true brilliance. Here is a taster:
The first time she stood before Dr. Josef, she was twelve years old and naked, and could sense his delight.
Powerful, attentive gaze. Hand clenched in a white glove. Steady strokes of the riding crop against his polished boots.
He had spotted her at once. Bony. Veinous. Sinewy. Face veiled in thick curls. Abdomen frost-coated. Calves crooked. Thighs a small bubble of winter air could squeeze between.
Standing in a group of hunchbacks, cripples, dwarves, and twins. Among children with deformed limbs that would be on display in a biology museum in just a few weeks’ time. Next to them wailed some bonny babies, still warm from their mothers’ arms. They showed him some Gypsy babies too, with lovely teeth and perfectly dome-shaped skulls that would adorn many a desktop after boiling. They would suit the silence of Berlin offices and libraries.
But he was looking only at her. They pushed her twin sister forward to join her. He flashed a glance at her. Different. He barely nodded and returned his gaze to her. He pointed his index finger to the right, anointing her as research material.
Again he examined her alone. He spared her no word or touch. His admiration was mute. He fondled with his gaze. He injured in his thoughts. Slid his eyes over her breasts. The breasts of a child. Cringing. With tiny nipples. Teats like early summer pale pink strawberries.
Suddenly he came near. One step. Two. He stood close. Stretched out a hand. Touched her with the crop. Her body buckled. The skin sagged into a small hollow. He pushed. It hurt. She didn’t move. Ja, gut. He liked her.
The two novels I write about here are not, however, Rudzka’s only novels. In fact, there are quite a few more in Polish. She began with Białe klisze (White Clichés, 1993), then Uczty i głody (Feasts and famines, 1995), Pałac Cezarów (Palace of the Caesars, 1995), Mykwa (Mikvah, 1999), Dziewczyna Bonda (The Bond’s Girl, 2004), Krótka wymiana ognia (A Brief Exchange of Fire, 2018; an extract in English in Aga Gabor da Silva’s translation can be read here) and Tkanki miękkie (Soft Tissues, 2020). She has also written several theatre plays and some poetry. Her work has been translated into German, Russian, French, Czech, Italian, Croatian and Japanese. So let’s just hope Dr. Josef-Little Beauty and Only Those with Teeth Can Smile are just the beginning and more of Rudzka’s works are brought into English in the future. This writer needs to be read!
Anna Blasiak
Photo of Zyta Rudzka by Laura Bielak, Wydawnictwo W.A.B.
Anna Blasiak is a poet, writer, translator and Managing Editor of the European Literature Network.
Read previous posts in The Polka series:
THE POLKA: What’s Riveting in Polish LIterature by Anna Blasiak. JOANNA BATOR and her bears
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