Andrzej Bart

(b. 1951) – prose writer, screenwriter, documentalist.

The novel which brought Bart the approval of critics and admiration of readers was Rien ne va plus, winner of the prestigious Kościelski Award. The book features a sentient portrait which travels from Italy to Poland and for two hundred years observes the nation’s woes, providing incisive commentary. The perspective of an Italian libertine (the painting hosts the spirit of prince d’Arzipazzi) is wittily juxtaposed with Polish mentality. In “Pociąg do podróży” (The Travel Bug) the writer uses the classic device of time travel: two American agents are sent to Vienna at the start of the 20^th century with a mission to eliminate the young Adolf Hitler and save the world from World War II. The plot of “Piąty jeździec Apokalipsy” (The Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse), published under a pseudonym, is equally zany and dazzling. This time it’s all about saving the world from the coming of the Antichrist and ultimate annihilation. The secret services get involved too. “Don Juan raz jeszcze” (Don Juan Revisited) – so far, Bart’s longest work – also features an excellent concept. This vivid, erudite novel refers to queen Joanna of Castile’s love for her late husband, Philip the Handsome. The distraught queen would not let the king be buried, which, at the beginning of 16^th century, scandalised the entire Catholic Europe. Bart adds his own fantastical ideas to the story. Who is to change the queen’s mind if not Don Juan, brought in from the monastery where he took refuge in after his debauched life. During the mission, Don Juan doffs his monk’s habit and takes on the part of the king’s brother in arms. Gradually, he gains the widow’s trust and affection. But with every page, the plot does not only thicken, it branches out, unfolds into separate subplots – a thriller, a crime story, a romance. Another book based on a historical motif interwoven with supernatural elements is “Śmierć głośna, śmierć cicha” (Loud Death, Quiet Death), set in Łódź right before World War II.

The protagonist of the famous book “Rewers” (Reverse) is Sabina, one of the characters in Rien ne va plus; there, she dies by suicide, and here the author brings her back to life. She leads a monotonous life in Stalinist Poland, dividing her time between a job at a publishing house and the house she shares with her mother and grandmother, who worry about her spinsterhood. Then a perfect suitor appears and asks her for a favour, one which requires only a written commitment. With humour and imagination, Bart spins a yarn about the consequences of this pact, about embodied evil, how we fight and conquer it – while transporting the reader back and forth between the 1950s and the present day. The film Reverse, based on this work (for which Bart wrote the screenplay), won the Golden Lions at the Gdynia Film Festival, and then was a candidate for the American Academy Award, i.e. the Oscar. The film was awarded many prizes at film festivals, including in Moscow and Seattle.

“Dybuk mniemany” (The Dybbuk Presumed) is a unique work, this time about the writer himself. Unexpectedly – and initially reluctantly – he becomes the confidant of his guest, Daniel Czarewicz, the son of a pre-war film producer. The book also features Bart’s private confessions, and his writing conjures up pre-war Warsaw, the German occupation, life in the ghetto.

Writing about one of Bart’s books, Marek Zaleski made a remark which can be successfully applied also to his other works: “While not affecting to be a masterpiece, Bart’s novel more than fulfils the expectations we have of good popular literature. In fact, Andrzej Bart has come to specialise in crafting sophisticated popular prose. He is admired as the author of intelligent, brilliant novels, tasked with providing entertainment at the highest level, entertainment understood as revelling in style, allusion, refined wit”.

His awards and nominations – apart from the above-mentioned Kościelski Award for the early novel Rien ne va plus – also include other prestigious distinctions, such as a nomination for the Nike Literary Award in 2007 for Don Juan Revisited and in 2009 for “Fabryka muchołapek” (Flytrap Factory); in those same years, both these novels were also nominated for the Gdynia Literary Prize. The latter was also nominated for the Angelus Central European Literature Award.

Bart is also a documentalist (his films include Eva R. and Marian Brandys), as well as a screenwriter and director of audio drama and films, such as the radio drama and TV movie Boulevard Voltaire (two prizes at the “Two Theatres” Polish Radio and Television Theatre Festival in 2011). At the same festival the audio drama, and later film “Bezdech” (Breathless) were awarded no less than four prizes (2013); this film also won accolades abroad, including in Sevastopol and Brazil.