Overview

The darkly comic tale of three generations of a Jewish family, from one of Poland's most renowned contemporary authors. Confidential follows on the success of acclaimed photographer, psychologist, and writer Mikoaj Grynberg's highly acclaimed short story collection, I'd Like to Say Sorry, but There's No One to Say Sorry To, which was a finalist for numerous awards, including Poland's most prestigious literary prize, the Nike, a National Jewish Book Award, the Sami Rohr Prize, and the National Translation Award in Prose for Sean Gasper Bye's excellent translation. This powerful new novella is a darkly comic portrait of a Jewish family in today's Poland, struggling to express their love for one another in the face of a past that cannot and will not be forgotten. The grandfather is a doctor, a Holocaust survivor who has now vowed to live only for pleasure. His son, born at the start of the war, becomes a well-respected physicist, but finds himself emotionally unable to attend the medical conferences in Germany, despite the benefit it would give his career. The mother is loving but firm, though she has a secret habit of attending strangers' funerals so that she can cry. A masterpiece of concision, Confidential expands on one of the stories in I'd Like to Say Sorry..., tackling themes of memory and care, trauma and memory, as well as enduring anti-Semitism, with unforgettable power, emotional complexity, and Grynberg's trademark black humour. 'A novel sparing only in words and form, not in emotion.' Vogue (Poland)

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9781620978801

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Reviews

Praise for Confidential: ""Mikołaj Grynberg’s writing is the art of context, able to take daily life and reveal the abyss within, to show ordinariness beginning to cast apocalyptic shadows."" —Olga Tokarczuk, Nobel Prize in Literature laureate and author of Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead ""Mikołaj Grynberg’s work stands out for its wit, beauty, and insight, and you can’t find a more brilliant and committed translator than Sean Gasper Bye. Confidential is a stunning book."" —Jennifer Croft, author of The Extinction of Irena Rey   

Author Information

Mikoaj Grynberg is a photographer, psychologist, and writer of fiction and nonfiction. He is the author of Survivors of the 20th Century, I Accuse Auschwitz, and The Book of Exodus as well as I'd Like to Say Sorry, but There's No One to Say Sorry To and Confidential, translated by Sean Gasper Bye (The New Press). He lives in Poland.

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