From Corsets to Communism: The Life and Times of Zofia Nalkowska

I had only one eye, I was hungry and cold, yet I wanted to live so that I could tell it all just as Ive told you. - From Zofia Nalkowskas Medallions (1947).

Witness to two world wars and Polands struggle for independence, Zofia Nalkowskas commitment to recording all is her gift to European literature. Her own story of love affairs, family loyalty and survival is remarkable in itself. Yet, her determination to record others truth, however painful, ties her fate to a nation whose battle for identity is both brutal and romantic. Her most renowned work, Medallions, a collection of short stories, exposes and restores dignity to people reduced, through Nazi occupation, to burnt out ghettos and guillotined heads heaped like potatoes. In contrast, as a keen and visionary observer of beauty, Nalkowska is innovative in exploring motherhoods psychological imprint and the blurred boundaries of male and female relationships. Drawing on her own background as a poet and Polish Studies graduate, Jennys Robertsons literary biography celebrates the achievements of a pioneering writer whose love of life not only propelled her to fame, but gave her the courage to witness atrocity. In doing so, Nalkowskas life and writing reflect and inform Europe's cultural heritage.