Farewells to Plasma - Natasza Goerke

Farewells to Plasma by Natasza Goerke, translated from the Polish by W. Martin / ISBN 9788086264158 / 140-page paperback with flaps from Twisted Spoon Press

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"Few Polish prose writers of the past ten years have attracted as much delight and bewilderment as Natasza Goerke. Her stories, which are commonly fastened with predicates like 'surreal,' 'grotesque,' 'ludicrous,' 'ironic,' and 'extravagant,' call to mind the absurdist and parabolic work of Daniil Kharms, Slawomir Mrozek, Clarice Lispector, and Antonio Tabucchi. Although her reluctance toward straightforward narration, her refusal of any 'responsibility' on the part of the writer to provide metaphysical product for the national masses, and her involvement with esoteric perspectives such as Buddhism and Asian cultures generally, all have caused less avant-garde-friendly critics to shake their heads in consternation, her erudition and extremely fine feeling for the Polish language have earned her recognition from all quarters as one of the most innovative and important voices of the younger generation."--from the Translator's Note

"Another comic objectivist has taken Ferdydurke to heart, fierce in her contempt for banality, a hardcore foe to the righteous literalists. The attack on torpid solipsism has swept deep into the fabulous township of "Ips." And if her excellent translator is not mistaken, Natasza Goerke is writing, to suit her singular characters, a prose that moves — for all its dash in odd directions — with a Chekhovian obliquity: in one stroke idiomatic, sensitive, and aloof."— Christopher Middleton