Needle's Eye

A rich, polyphonic novel from one of the leading voices of contemporary Polish literature, encompassing a half-century of history and memory In a Polish village, a young man watches an old man tri ...

A rich, polyphonic novel from one of the leading voices of contemporary Polish literature, encompassing a half-century of history and memory In a Polish village, a young man watches an old man trip and fall down a flight of stairs. From this singular event arises a cascade of memories, regrets, and longings: the buried sensations of a whole lifetime, condensed and released. We hear of life during occupation, the scarcities of a childhood lived under the sign of war—and fragments of a home’s sounds and scents (the private speech of mothers and fathers, the treasures of coffee, raisins, almonds,