Being Poland: A New History of Polish Literature and Culture Since 1918

Being Poland offers a unique analysis of the cultural developments that took place in Poland after World War One, a period marked by Poland’s return to independence. Conceived to address the lack of critical scholarship on Poland’s cultural restoration, Being Poland illuminates the continuities, paradoxes, and contradictions of Poland’s modern and contemporary cultural practices, and challenges the narrative typically prescribed to Polish literature and film.

Reflecting the radical changes, rifts, and restorations that swept through Poland in this period, Polish literature and film reveal a multitude of perspectives. Addressing romantic perceptions of the Polish immigrant, the politics of post-war cinema, poetry, and mass media, Being Poland is a comprehensive reference work written with the intention of exposing an international audience to the explosion of Polish literature and film that emerged in the twentieth century.

Tamara Trojanowska is Director for the Centre for Drama, Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Toronto, and an associate professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literature at the University of Toronto.
Joanna Niżyńska is an associate professor in the Department of Slavic & East European Languages and Cultures at Indiana University, Bloomington.
Przemyslaw Czapliński is a professor of Polish literature at Adam Mickiewicz University in Poland.
Agnieszka Polakowska works as an editor and a translator (Polish to English). Her past projects include academic essay collections, articles, doctoral dissertations, and personal memoirs. She holds two Master degrees (in English and in Polish Literature) from the University of Toronto.