Novel
I Burn Paris
Palę Paryż
Bruno Jasieński · 1929
Opening lines
Zaczęło się to od drobnego, nic na pozór nie znaczącego wypadku natury zdecydowanie prywatnej.
It began with a small, seemingly insignificant incident of a decidedly private nature.
Translation by Erostrate
Text quoted from wolnelektury.pl
Synopsis
In Paris, a worker who has been dismissed from his job and reduced to poverty obtains a plague bacillus and infects the city's water supply with it. The epidemic spreads, and the capital breaks up into small states entrenched behind their walls according to the origin and opinions of their inhabitants: Russian émigrés, American magnates, Communard tenants and many others, each trying to save their own and to flee the poisoned city.
Context
The novel was a humorous reply to Paul Morand's pamphlet Je brûle Moscou, published shortly before. It appeared first in French, as a serial in L'Humanité in 1928, in a translation that was not by the author and that its English translator judges very watered down; it was immediately translated into Russian. The Polish text was published in Warsaw by Rój in 1929, censored wherever it touched on Polish politics. The book earned its author great notoriety in France and was the main reason for his expulsion.
Who it is for
A lively, satirical science-fiction novel, which can be read without prior knowledge of Polish futurism.
Prizes and reception
The book that established its author's reputation; it was translated into Russian, then into Czech, Dutch and German.
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