Farewells to Plasma

Fiction. Few Polish prose writers of the past ten years have attracted as much delight and bewilderment as Natasza Goerke. Her stories, which are commonly fastened with predicates like "surreal", "grotesque", "ludicrous", "ironic", and "extravagant", call to mind the absurdist and parabolic work of Daniil Kharms, Slawomir, Mrozek, Clarice Lispector, and Antonio Tabucchi. FAREWELLS TO PLASMA is a selection of Goerke's short stories and prose from her three volumes in Polish "The transgression and abolition of borders, the permeation of East and West, tradition and modernity, dream and reality - these are the narrative coordinates of Goerke's universe, teeming with those who are wandering, searching, yearning - and, chiefly, loving"-S?ddeutsche Zeitung.

This is a selection of short surrealistic-grotesque stories from Goerke's three original Polish titles. Recalling Kafka's parables and Borges' ficciones, her writing eludes all static interpretations: she carries on philosphical disputations in colloquial language, reduces national and cultural myths to absurdity, and juxtaposes commonplaces and archetypes. Her narrative forms describe, capture and interpret the chaos of our natural environment and are of a caliber that deserves wider international recognition.