A Thousand Peaceful Cities

„If laughter actually is the best medicine, fortunate readers of this wonderful novel will surely enjoy perfect health for the rest of their days.”–Kirkus Reviews

A comic gem, Jerzy Pilch’s&nbsp A Thousand Peaceful Cities&nbsp takes place in 1963, in the latter days of the Polish post-Stalinist „thaw.” The narrator, Jerzyk („little Jerzy”), is a teenager who is keenly interested in his father, a retired postal administrator, and his father’s closest friend, Mr. Traba, a failed Lutheran clergyman, alcoholic, and would-be Polish insurrectionist. One drunken afternoon, Mr. Traba and the narrator’s father decide to take charge of their lives and do one final good turn for humanity: travel to distant Warsaw and assassinate the de facto Polish head of state, First Secretary of the Polish United Workers’ Party, Wladyslaw Gomulka–assassinating Mao Tse-tung, after all, would be impractical. And they decide to involve Jerzyk in their scheme…

Jerzy Pilch&nbsp is one of Poland’s most important contemporary writers and journalists. In addition to his long-running satirical newspaper column, Pilch has published several novels, and has been nominated for Poland’s prestigious NIKE Literary Award four times he finally won the Award in 2001 for&nbsp The Mighty Angel. His novels have been translated into numerous languages.