Piotr Paziński

Polish journalist, essayist, literary critic, translator and writer Piotr Paziński was born in 1973. He studied philosophy at Warsaw University, and graduated in 1999. In 2005 he defended his thesis about James Joyce’s »Ulysses« at the Institute for Literary Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences. From 1992 until 1997 Paziński was a journalist at the foreign news desk of »Gazeta Wyborcza«. He worked for »Midrasz«, a monthly journal about Jewish life and culture, from 1997 and became its chief editor in 2000.
Paziński’s fictitious travel guide for the Irish capital »Dublin z Ulissesem« was published in 2008. It includes the accounts of eighteen imaginary city walks of James Joyce on »Bloomsday«, 16 June 1904. The author describes different places in Dublin. His book also offers illustrations, detailed maps, and about 250 biographies of the persons mentioned in »Ulysses«. Paziński’s first novel »Pensjonat« appeared in 2009 and is about a man, who visits the small hotel near Warsaw where he often spent his holidays as a child, often together with his grandmother, a Holocaust survivor, whom he meets again − together with many other old guests − at their former holiday residence. The plot covers several periods and revives the events of the past, triggers new conflicts and ideological discourses. It is full of numerous Jewish anecdotes and similes. With his novelistic memories Paziński, a member of the third generation after the Shoah, proves that the Jewish heritage in Poland is still vibrant and alive. Sensual images illustrate the diversity of Jewish heritage. The reader learns about the different destinies of the dead and the survivors. The novel presents a polyphony of voices in a vivid dialogue and continues the discussion about the existence of God and the mission of the Jewish people.
Piotr Paziński was shortlisted for the Nike Award with his debut »Pensjonat«, and received the Paszport Polityki, the cultural award of the Polish weekly »Polityka« for literature, film, theatre, music and visual arts in 2009. Piotr Paziński lives in Warsaw.

© internationales literaturfestival berlin

Labirynt i drzewo
Studia nad Ulissesem Jamesa Joyce’a
Austeria
Krakau, 2005

Dublin z Ulissesem
Wraz ze słownikiem bohaterów Ulissesa
Czuły Barbarzyńca Press
Warschau, 2008

Pensjonat
Nisza
Warschau, 2009