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The Crowe
A magical fairytale about a December night in 1981, when the communist dictatorship introduced martial law in Poland
Alice travelled through the Wonderland, while Adaś starts on a journey through a city straight from a dark dream of the Polish People’s Republic. Lost between cruel allegories in the form of the Screechers, the Spooks, the Merrymen, the Positionists, the Rook-Soldiers, the Boobies and the Zompors, he is looking for his father kidnapped from home by the Crowe.
The Crowe is the most recent history of Poland framed into a surprising and extravagant form of a fairytale for children and grown-ups, built of non-obvious associations of a young boy traumatised by History. It’s a dream about a lost childhood and a poisoned youth, full of language games and phantasmagoria.
The book also consists of rhyming songs full of absurd humour as well as mad, colourful illustrations by Jakub Jabłoński.
The novel has been adapted for the theatre by Jerzy Bielunas in the Kamienica Theatre (2010) and by Jan Peszek in the Wrocław Puppet Theatre (2011). There is also an educational board game based on the book.
There has never been a text about martial law – an event of absolute key importance to the collective memory of the Polish people – like this one. Jacek Dukaj has written a novel that completely contradicts previous narratives about the trauma experienced by Poles in December. […] Using a fairy-tale convention and constantly challenging stereotypes, he introduces a historical discourse on martial law into a space of fun and artistic excess.
Artur Madaliński, Dwutygodnik
The Crowe (Wroniec) is an extraordinary book. Dukaj combines various styles in it, mixing the language of a little boy with exaggerated party newspeak. The characters resemble comic book heroes, and the serious subject matter is framed within a nightmare. The spirit of Lewis Carroll and the Brothers Grimm hovers over everything, although there are also references to Cormac McCarthy, Edgar Allan Poe, Stefan Żeromski and Tadeusz Konwicki. […] Dukaj's imagination and talent seem limitless.
Krzysztof Cieślik, Polityka
Book Details
148K characters
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Hardcover
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145x205 mm
I edition
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Wydawnictwo Literackie
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2009