Julia Hartwig

Always Returning

The diaries of this well-known poet of her travels in France and the USA at the turn of the 1980's and 90's . The first records date back to 1986, and the last to 1992. When she made these notes, Julia Hartwig never thought she would publish them. It wasn't until she was working on a memoir commissioned by her publisher that the idea occurred to her while she was going through some old papers. "They had the value of directness for me, they were as fresh as the events of the day," she recalls. "They reflected public events, echoes from Poland, visits to museums and my day-to-day reading. After some hesitation I appended my notes from Poland to them." The comments are mainly about literature and politics, but they also contain observations on customs.

The qualities of Julia Hartwig's writing make it all come together in one compact entity with no distinctions into the high and the low things. (Krzysztof Maslon)