This is a new edition of one of the most important novels of the last decade, which won the 1997 Nike Prize. The novel is set in a provincial world, seen through the eyes of an adolescent boy.
This book, together with Gustaw Herling-Grudziński’s A World Apart and Alexander Solzhenitsyn’s The Gulag Archipelago, forms the horrifying canon of witness to a hecatomb of suffering caused by enforcing the communist utopia with unfathomable cruelty by the Soviet apparatus of violence and oppression. Czesław Miłosz praised it in A Year of the Hunter for being an undaunted record of a terrible truth, which is certain to endure longer than any work of art.
The Institute is an amalgamate of three genres: horror, thriller and a novel of manners. The intrigue presented in it is only a pretext to portray a panorama of a generation of people in their thirties, their unfulfilled aspirations, their attitude towards the surrounding reality, their escape from responsibility and the way they fight social stereotypes. It is also a book about the subconscious divisions into “us” and “them” and about the need to define oneself through finding an enemy.
The action of Pawel Huelle’s newest novel takes place in Gdansk, during a single day, in the indescript, but not too distant future. The city has undergone some substantial changes; a couple of streets have again switched names, mosques have sprung up near churches, the lives of the residents are sporadically paralyzed by mysterious explosions—in which some see the workings of Islamic fundamentalists, others the workings of a madman, while others still suspect sabotage by the producer of Monsignore brand wine...
It is a well-told, modern story of three Polish children who have to overcome many obstacles in order to win back the love of their parents who are engrossed by earning money. The world of Kuki, Tosia and Filip is strongly influenced by the magical world in the form of the red chair, made of the Magic Tree, endowed with many unusual powers. Thrilling and fast-paced, the book is a true page-turner.