Review of W kręgu Conrada (Within Conrad’s Circle) by Stefan Zabierowski (…)

Abstract

Stefan Zabierowski’s important new book entitled W kręgu Conrada (Within Conrad’s Circle) is a unique blend of research, scholarly insight and humour. It is a collection of essays that take a fresh look at some engaging episodes in Conrad’s life and at some of his writing. The volume opens with a multi-faceted interpretation of the 1914 press interview which Conrad gave to the Polish journalist Marian Dąbrowski and which has hitherto received far less scholarly attention than it deserves. Zabierowski specifi es the goals which Dąbrowski set himself in presenting the then celebrated British author to Polish readers. Posing nationally-biased questions, Dąbrowski tried to pigeonhole Conrad into the Polish stereotype of a national bard. Conrad would not be drawn on this, however, and instead presented his own vision of his past life, accentuating the pursuit of his personal dreams: “On his own merit, some insignifi cant boy from the eastern borderlands, from a godforsaken province, from some place called Poland, became a master mariner in the British Merchant Marine” [...]. Recenzja: W kręgu Conrada / Stefan Zabierowski. - Katowice : Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, 2008. - 209, [1] s. ; 21 cm.