Henryk Grynberg

Exiles

About the author
Excerpt

Henryk Grynberg has given us a surprise – after several books devoted to the relentless fight against anti-Semitism he has written an anecdotal account that is light and full of charm. In his previous collection of essays he fulminated in a patriarchal manner, blaming Christian Europe first for the murder of the Jews, then of bias in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In today’s Poland he has revealed the old anti-Semitic words and gestures he had to escape from in 1967. It was not pleasant reading for us, alas. He contrasted rotten Europe with America as a place where Jews no longer had to hide. And now he has written a book about those who took refuge there, about fugitives from Gomułka’s Poland including the writer Marek Hłasko, the film director Roman Polański, the jazz musician Krzysztof Komeda, and above all about himself. This book has many flavours: it is full of youth, energy and sex. And it is not in any way impaired by the fact that some of its heroes were also fugitives from life – people who committed suicide. It also seems highly personal, because although most of Grynberg’s books relate to his own life story and his family’s fortunes, he has always insisted that the reader should not identify him as the hero. Here too he allows himself a little safety precaution. “These masculine adventures were just the follies of youth!”, he declares in the introduction. But for the first time nonetheless he writes about his marriages and close friends. Exiles is somewhat reminiscent of his superb novels about the 1950s in Poland, Ideological Life and Personal Life. The hero of these books is a young Jew who has had to learn how to pretend and dissemble. In Exiles we see the same hero, but finally he is not having to play a game. This breath of fresh air, this sense of relief can be felt throughout the narrative. Grynberg clearly enjoys playing around with the usual conventions, and the reader shares his pleasure in it.

Justyna Sobolewska