House of Day, House of Night

by Olga Tokarczuk

In a region that was once Germany but is now Poland, a woman and her husband make a life in a house where a stream runs through the foundation. Their neighbors include Marta, an older woman and wig maker, and So-and-so, who tells the story of how young Marek Marek hanged himself. Other stories weave through this place: a man dies on the Czech border and his body is dragged from one side to the other; a young monk writes the story of a saint and longs desperately to be a woman; a husband and wife each fall in love with a mysterious visitor, neither of them knowing of the other’s indiscretion. Occasionally, Germans are seen walking through the fields at night, digging in the ground. There’s a question here about place and displacement, about what happens when the people who built a town come to haunt it, and the people who live in it walk lightly over the ground.

Translator
Antonia Lloyd-Jones
Publisher
Riverhead
Year
1998
Collection
Fiction
Buy this book
Bookshop

Selected essays

Writing essays & notes

  1. Petered

    On Making a Career in Dictatorship and Bullshit Jobs

  2. An addiction

    On To Write Like a Woman and Why We Fear AI

  3. In the world

    In memory of Nevan Scott, 1985–2026

Reading books

  1. Lavinia

    by Ursula K. Le Guin

A creative space to practice the future →