The Birdcage Archives

Sunday, 7 June 2020

Jerzy Pilch Dies Aged 67


Hello Gentle Reader

Jerzy Pilch was one of Poland’s most intellectually fierce writers, and perhaps one of its most noted satirists. His literary career begun in the depths of Poland’s Soviet past. In the late seventies and early eighties, Pilch made a name for himself through the underground literary machine, by writing and reciting his satirical essays, during Poland’s martial law phase. The essay was Pilch’s first literary endeavor. Those scathing, sardonic, and satirical articles, zinged across Poland after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and appeared routinely in newspapers; after which they were collected and published in book format. In the nineties, Pilch turned his literary interests to grander prose and fiction, producing novels throughout the last decade of the Twentieth Century and into the Twenty-First Century. His novels: “My First Suicide,” “A Thousand Peaceful Cities,” and “The Mighty Angel,”—carried the same sense of the ironic, absurd, and fermented satire, which had previously gathered him praised in the past with his essays and reoccurring newspaper columns. The Polish public admired the fierce brand of literary humour that Pilch was more then happy to provide; perhaps proving the notion or at least conventional understanding that in Poland high literary pursuits does not equate antiquated boorish snobbery, but rather an enjoyable expedition into the philosophical conundrums of the human experience, rendered with ironic precision, deceitful simplicity, and understated understanding of the contradictions and paradoxes.

Jerzy Pilch, died in late May from complications of Parkinson’s.

Rest in Peace Jerzy Pilch.

Thank-you For Reading Gentle Reader
Take Care
And As Always
Stay Well Read

M. Mary

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