The Graveyard

"A spokesman for those who were angry and beat, turbulent, temperamental and tortured... In The Graveyard , Hlasko stabs his knife into the regime and draws it out dripping blood." -- The New York Times "Hlasko's story comes off the page at you like a pit bull." -- The Washington Post When Marek Hłasko sent this novel to publishers in Poland in the mid-1950s, it was uniformly rejected. When he asked why, he was told: "This Poland doesn't exist." Long out of print, The Graveyard is Hłasko's 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 People's 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...