The Graveyard | Marek Hlasko
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History has no use for witnesses. When Marek H?asko sent this novel to publishers in Poland in the mid-1950s, it was uniformly rejected. When he asked why, he was told: This Poland doesnt exist. Long out of print, The Graveyard is H?askos portrait of a system built on such denial and willful blindness. Factory worker Franciszek Kowalski is on his way home one evening after drinking with an old friend from the Peoples Army when he unthinkingly yells some insults at a policeman. His outburst is taken as criticism of the government, and he is arrested and then expelled from the Party. Kowalski attempts to rehabilitate himself by gathering testimonies from the men he had fought alongside, but each meeting with his former comrades takes him further into the underworld that he realizes has been there all along. Written midway through H?askos meteoric career, The Graveyard set its author and the Polish Communist government implacably against each other, and its easy to see why: H?asko pulls no punches in portraying a regime that is maintained by constant surveillance, intimidation, and profound psychological manipulation. A classic novel of political disillusionment from one of Polands seminal writers, an original Angry Young Man who lived fast, died young, and wrote brilliantly. From the Trade Paperback edition.