A Warsaw sociologist is summoned to Geneva to participate in an oral-history project about the collapse of Eastern European communism and resolves to tell his own story through a gallery of portraits of the many women he has loved. These reminiscences emerge against the broader canvas of circumstances and events that have shaped the past sixty years of Poland's turbulent, tragic history. Soon he finds himself inexorably drawn to his interrogator from the "free" world, the chronicler of his life, the keeper of his secrets, and his heart's last hope for redemptive love. Self-Portrait with Woman...

Andrzej Szczypiorski is one of the major figures in world literature. In The Shadow Catcher, he tells the story of a boy who comes of age as the world around him begins to fall apart. At fifteen, Krzys is the adored and sheltered son of a wealthy Polish family; it is the moment just before World War II, which will forever change their lives, but Krzys is only partly aware of what is happening around him. He lives in a world shrouded in silent cries and fleeting whispers -- here his awakening into manhood is accompanied by a sense of imminent doom. The Shadow Catcher is a richly evocative,...

Aus Anlass des 60. Jahrestages des Uberfalls der Deutschen Wehrmacht auf Polen hielt Andrzej Szczypiorski am 1. September 1999 vor dem Plenum der Hamburger Burgerschaft den hier zum Wiederabdruck kommenden Vortrag. Die Thesen dieses Vortrags hat Szczypiorski am 17. September 1999 an der Europa-Universitat Viadrina Frankfurt (Oder) unter dem Titel -Das Verhaltnis von Tugend und Werten- zur Diskussion gestellt. Aus dieser Diskussion ist der hier abgedruckte Beitrag von Frau Prof. Dr. Bozena Choluj hervorgegangen; Frau Choluj ist Professorin am Collegium Polonicum, einer Gemeinschaftseinrichtung...