Dukla

This book presents a challenge to the reviewer. It is almost impossible to neatly summarise and even harder to do justice to the impression it leaves on the reader.

Dukla is a small resort town in South-Eastern Poland. In this lyrical mélange comprising a short essay, a novella, and then a series of brief portraits of local people and events, Andrzej Stasiuk sets out to convey the feeling of what it is like to experience the town at different times of year. All the reader must do is lie back and let these evocations envelop the senses.

Early on Staisuk describes his wish to 'write a book about light' and, befitting the task, his prose is elegant and evocative, gilded with beautiful, limpid observations about space and place. At the same time this is not just an exercise in style; the portraits feature engaging characters and caricatures redolent of Milan Kundera.

But it's the absorbing, kaleidoscopic prose that really sticks in the mind. Its observations of daily life and seemingly trivial asides lull the reader into a dreamlike state. It's not always an easy read: work is required but it is generously rewarded.