Not There
Not There is a collection of essays and reportage exploring loss, grief, absence and, ultimately, acceptance and even joy. Mariusz Szczygieł takes as inspiration his conversations with a wide range of people, from a Czech poet, a Ukrainian soldier, a retired Polish accountant, a Hungarian antique shop owner, and an Albanian painter, to the author’s own elderly father.
Szczygieł begins these interviews with a discussion of the idea of absence and the way humans face it, but the conversations expand and meander in fascinating and unusual directions. Written in a beautiful, associative style reminiscent of W.G. Sebald, Not There considers the instability of memory and how our idea of the truth might be a very personal one.
Mariusz Szczygiel is one of the best-known members of the Polish school of reportage, associated with Ryszard Kapus cin ski and Hanna Krall. In Not There, he memorably examines the human condition, its inevitably tragic absences and its enduring happiness.