Waiting for the Dog to Sleep

Not part of any literary school or circle, Ficowski occupies a peculiar and unique place in Polish literature, and this is his only collection of prose. In these short stories and sketches Ficowski mythologizes reality, using fiction to turn the quotidian into the stuff of dreams and eternity, and reinterprets it by asking the question: To what extent was/is this possible following the Holocaust? The Holocaust, however, is only implied, a lurking, vaguely sinister presence behind the dreamlike tales Ficowski spins as he effortlessly weaves memory, religious ritual, daily life, and the magical. And yet there is always an aspect of ruin or disintegration while the narrator repeatedly struggles to link some aspect of a past that has been annihilated with a present that is foreign and hostile.