Polish Historical Fiction

Since its beginnings, Poland has been a moving target, geographically as well as demographically, and the very definition of who is a Pole has been in flux. In the late medieval and early modern periods, the country grew to be the largest in continental Europe, only to be later wiped off the map for more than a century. Yet even under these constraints, Poles persisted in their desire to wrest from their oppressors a modicum of national dignity and, ultimately, managed to achieve much more than that.

The bold one, they call her - too bold for most. To her father, the great duke of Poland, Swietoslawa and her two sisters represent three chances for an alliance. Three marriages on which to build his empire. But Swietoslawa refuses to be simply a pawn in her father's schemes; she seeks a throne of her own, with no husband by her side.

1941, Poland. Though war rages around her and occupying German forces march steadily onward, 16-year-old Aleksandra has lived her life sheltered from danger. Until one day, she goes to school—never to return. Pushed roughly into a truck with other schoolgirls like her, a single ominous word tells her all she needs to know about her fate: Lebensborn.

Winner of both the Giller Prize and the Commonwealth Writers' Prize, The Polished Hoe is acclaimed author Austin Clarke's masterpiece. On a Caribbean island in the 1950s, elderly Mary Gertrude Mathilda commits murder. As she explains herself to police, her story exposes the ugly underbelly of life on Caribbean plantations, with its slavery and brutality.

New York Times bestselling author Alan Furst is internationally renowned as master of the European espionage thriller. Unfolding in September of 1939 as Hitler’s Wehrmacht ravages Warsaw, the Polish Officer discloses the clandestine existence of Polish Military Intelligence.

As Nazi soldiers round up the Jews in their town, Róza and her five-year-old daughter, Shira, flee, seeking shelter in a neighbor’s barn. Hidden in the hayloft day and night, Shira struggles to stay still and quiet, as music pulses through her and the farmyard outside beckons. In this make-believe world, Róza can shield Shira from the horrors that surround them. But the day comes when their haven is no longer safe, and Róza must make an impossible choice: whether to keep Shira by her side or give her the chance to survive apart.

September 1939: The conquering Nazis swarm through Warsaw as social worker Irena Sendler watches in dread from her apartment window. Already, the city's poor go hungry. Irena wonders how she will continue to deliver food and supplies to those who need it most, including the forbidden Jews. The answer comes unexpectedly.

Thirteen-year-old Anna escapes the horrors of Nazi occupied Warsaw and joins the underground. Under the guidance of a resistance fighter known as the Captain, she learns to survive, to cope with devastating loss, and to fight back. Every day is a challenge, and every mission is a battle against impossible odds. Then one night two allied planes fall from the sky, and everything changes in this action-packed, epic tale of despair, heartbreak, hope, and the triumph of the human spirit. “The Promise: A World War II Story” is a riveting, decades-spanning, sweeping story, and an emotionally ...

Nazis are already infiltrating Polva, a quiet town in southern Poland, to scout for provisions for the looming invasion. Grandfather, Maria and other veterans of the Polish underground know the meaning of the German word 'Blitzkrieg' or Lightning War, intercepted on their secret channels. The race to educate, train and provision Aleks and his friends must be finished in secret before the attack. But these youth are the children of heroes, and they have already learned the meaning of courage and unfaltering love. They want to participate, and the Resistance needs their intelligence, youthful...

In 1881, 12-year-old Rodzina Clara Jadwiga Anastazya Brodski wishes she didn't have to board the orphan train in Chicago. But she has no home, no family, and no choice. Rodzina doesn't believe the orphans are on their way out West to be adopted by good families. She's sure they will become slaves to strangers. Anyway, who would ever adopt a large, tough, stubborn girl of Polish origin? As the train heads west, all Rodzina has is a small suitcase and her family memories from the past.

Pierwsza czesc wspanialej trylogii Henryka Sienkiewicza. Wielka milosc rycerza bez skazy, Jana Skrzetuskiego i uroczej, niewinnej szlachcianki Heleny Kurcewiczówny. A w tle dzieje Polski w dobie powstania Chmielnickiego (1648-1654).

The death of Alexander the Great was the signal to begin the greatest war in human history - a war that swept like a firestorm from one end of the known world to the other, as his former generals fought like jackals to make his vast empire their own. By 305 BC, the most powerful players in this deadly game faced each other across the Mediterranean: Ptolemy, the master of Egypt, and Antigonus One-Eye, master of Asia. And between them, the island of Rhodes, a strategic fortress city that neither could afford to cede to the enemy.

Druga czesc "Trylogii", wydana w 1886 Roku. Akcja dzieje sie w okresie najazdu szwedzkiego na Polske (1655-1660). Zareczony z Olenka Billewiczówna chorazy orszanski Andrzej Kmicic opowiada sie poczatkowo po stronie kolaborujacego ze Szwedami poteznego rodu magnackiego Radziwillów.

A heartbreaking and deeply compelling debut, Mrs. Sinclair’s Suitcase is a compulsive pause-resister about thwarted love, dashed hopes, and family secrets - book-club fiction at its best. Roberta, a lonely 34-year-old bibliophile, works at The Old and New Bookshop in England. When she finds a letter inside her centenarian grandmother’s battered old suitcase that hints at a dark secret, her understanding of her family’s history is completely upturned.

Winter 1939: Danusha and her family are forced to flee their home when the Nazis invade Poland. Danusha’s mother, Anna, changes her name and secures a position as a housekeeper in a German doctor’s mansion in Kraków where Gestapo meetings are hosted in the kitchen. Her secret is their salvation, but what Danusha remembers most is the solitude, with only her baby brother and the girl in the mirror for company.

It’s 1937. Poland is about to catch fire. In the boxing ring, Jakub Szapiro commands respect, revered as a hero by the Jewish community. Outside, he instills fear as he muscles through Warsaw as enforcer for a powerful crime lord. Murder and intimidation have their rewards. He revels in luxury, spends lavishly, and indulges in all the pleasures that barbarity offers. For a man battling to be king of the underworld, life is good. Especially when it’s a frightening time to be alive.

Klasyczna pozytywistyczna powieść Elizy Orzeszkowej, ukazująca obraz polskiego społeczeństwa po powstaniu styczniowym. Tłem powieści jest świat dworów i zaścianków szlacheckich na Litwie, a głównymi motywami ciężka praca oraz praca u podstaw, polityka caratu wobec Polaków po powstaniach i przełamywanie konfliktów klasowych. Mieszkająca na dworze Korczyńskich Justyna Orzelska to uboga szlachcianka, która nieszczęśliwie zakochała się w swoim bogatym kuzynie Zygmuncie. Matka Zygmunta nie aprobowała jego związku z dziewczyną, więc ją porzucił.

W 1988 roku Gerard Edling prowadził śledztwo, które zakończyło się ujęciem i skazaniem sprawcy serii zagadkowych zabójstw. Z racji ich tajemniczego charakteru, w kronikach kryminalnych morderca nazywany był Iluzjonistą - długo zwodził śledczych, a zabójstw dokonywał tak, by dowody wskazywały na inne osoby. Jego ofiar nie łączyło nic poza tym, że na ich skórze znajdował się wypalony znak zapytania.

"Znachor" to wzruszajaca historia chirurga, profesora Rafala Wilczura, który zrozpaczony odejsciem zony i córeczki szuka ukojenia w alkoholu. Bedac kompletnie pijanym, zostaje okradziony i pobity, w wyniku czego traci pamiec. Po latach wlóczegostwa kradnie dokumenty i pod nazwiskiem Antoniego Kosiby znajduje schronienie u mlynarza. Zyskuje slawe znachora po udanej operacji. Miejscowy lekarz, zazdrosny o jego sukcesy, grozi Kosibie sadem za wykonywanie praktyki lekarskiej bez zezwolenia.

"Pan Wolodyjowski" jest zwienczeniem Trylogii. Henryk Sienkiewicz polaczyl istotne watki: losy Zagloby, Skrzetuskiego i tytulowego Michala Wolodyjowskiego. Opowiesc o milosci, przyjazni, zazdrosci, nienawisci i zdradzie przedstawionych na tle wojen z Turcja.