JULIAN STRYKOWSKI: AUSTERIA [1966].

Description

Stryjkowski Julian – Austeria
First edition, Warsaw 1966 | Dedication by the author | AP bibliophile binding | Very good condition.

First edition of one of the most important novels of Polish postwar literature – with a handwritten dedication by Julian Stryjkowski (1905-1996) dated October 4, 1966. The book was published by the Czytelnik publishing house in Warsaw. It counts 228, [2] pages.
“Austeria” is part of Stryjkowski’s so-called Galician tetralogy, alongside “Voices in the Dark” (1956), “Azril’s Dream” (1975) and “Echo” (1988). The story is set at the beginning of World War I, when Russian troops enter Galicia. In the roadside inn – the austerity of the title – an old Jew named Tag seeks refuge for refugees from the small-town Jewish community. In the face of danger, hitherto hidden conflicts, envies and desires are revealed. The novel is a foreshadowing of the doom that World War II will bring – it shows the disintegration of the traditional Jewish culture of the shtetl under the influence of history, assimilation, socialism and Zionism, intertwining the realistic and metaphorical plan. In 1982 Jerzy Kawalerowicz made a famous film based on the novel, starring Franciszek Pieczka and Wojciech Pszoniak.
A copy preserved in very good condition. It has the author’s handwritten dedication on the title page dated October 4, 1966 – the dedication is partially illegible. It was hand-bound in an exclusive natural leather binding by the Polish Antiquarian Bookbindery.

14011-19-AZ