Zbigniew Mentzel
All the Languages of the World
Wszystkie języki świata
RIGHTS SOLD:
Germany: DTV
France: Seuil
Russia: Innostrannaya Literatura - first serial rights
Russia: NLO - trade rights
Lithuania: Mintis
About the author:
All the Languages of the World
Wszystkie języki świata
RIGHTS SOLD:
Germany: DTV
France: Seuil
Russia: Innostrannaya Literatura - first serial rights
Russia: NLO - trade rights
Lithuania: Mintis
Zbigniew Hintz, narrator and protagonist, strives in vain to meet the expectations of his mother, an unfulfilled pianist and poetess. The novel portrays his grotesque trials throughout the 1950s and 1960s to attain the great artistic career which he was destined to pursue “all over Poland first and then all over the world” but which remains but a dream. The events of the novel take place within a single day ten years after the fall of Communism in Poland. It is through a series of retrospectives that we learn about Hintz’s childhood and youth which were strongly affected also by the humiliation he experienced from his father constantly at variance with his mother.
Hintz, a type of an eternal student and an enthusiastic autodidact, tries to improve his “life balance” by trading stock and collecting information for a book he intends to write about a “language of the future.” He takes interest in the paranoid theory developed by Nikolay Marr, father of the Marxist linguistics in Russia eventually condemned by Stalin, who maintained that in the class-free society spoken language would in the end disappear in favour of a universal “language of thought.”
Language and speech – the most amazing of human abilities – thus become Hintz’s obsession. When reflecting upon his tangled family history, he recalls the memories of those relatives who have already died and he cannot help thinking that everything they once said was of no importance. Rather, what was most important about them – their deepest truth – remains unspoken and might forever remain secret. In search of this secret, Hintz breaks a promise he once made to his mother, and listens to a message she left on his answering machine two days before her death.
Hintz, a type of an eternal student and an enthusiastic autodidact, tries to improve his “life balance” by trading stock and collecting information for a book he intends to write about a “language of the future.” He takes interest in the paranoid theory developed by Nikolay Marr, father of the Marxist linguistics in Russia eventually condemned by Stalin, who maintained that in the class-free society spoken language would in the end disappear in favour of a universal “language of thought.”
Language and speech – the most amazing of human abilities – thus become Hintz’s obsession. When reflecting upon his tangled family history, he recalls the memories of those relatives who have already died and he cannot help thinking that everything they once said was of no importance. Rather, what was most important about them – their deepest truth – remains unspoken and might forever remain secret. In search of this secret, Hintz breaks a promise he once made to his mother, and listens to a message she left on his answering machine two days before her death.
All the Languages of the World is a novel written against a bogus consciousness which hinders us from articulating the truth of our experiences, seeking redress, re-thinking mistakes...
About the author:
Zbigniew Mentzel (b. 1951) graduated in Polish Philology from the Warsaw University. Until 13 December, 1981 (the day martial law was introduced in Poland) he was assistant professor at the Warsaw University Chair of Polish Culture and wrote articles for the Polityka weekly. Thereafter he worked for the Puls émigré publishing house in London. When the communist era ended in Poland, Zbigniew Mentzel became Puls’ representative in Poland and editor of the Puls bimonthly.
He is the author of three books: a grotesque chronicle of cultural life Pod kreską. Ostatnie kwartały PRL (In The Red. The Last Months of the People’s Republic of Poland) and two collections of short stories, Laufer (Bishop) and Niebezpieczne narzędzie w ustach (The Dangerous Instrument in the Mouth). He also edited three volumes of essays by one of the most eminent Polish philosophers, Leszek Kołakowski. His feuilletons have appeared in 'Tygodnik Powszechny', 'Przekrój' and the Warsaw Stock Exchange bulletin 'Parkiet'.
He is the author of three books: a grotesque chronicle of cultural life Pod kreską. Ostatnie kwartały PRL (In The Red. The Last Months of the People’s Republic of Poland) and two collections of short stories, Laufer (Bishop) and Niebezpieczne narzędzie w ustach (The Dangerous Instrument in the Mouth). He also edited three volumes of essays by one of the most eminent Polish philosophers, Leszek Kołakowski. His feuilletons have appeared in 'Tygodnik Powszechny', 'Przekrój' and the Warsaw Stock Exchange bulletin 'Parkiet'.
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