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Testaments
Ohio University Press Polish and Polish-American Studies Series
Series Editor: John J. Bukowczyk
Framing the Polish Home: Postwar Cultural Constructions of Hearth, Nation, and Self, edited by Bożena Shallcross
Traitors and True Poles: Narrating a Polish-American Identity, 1880–1939, by Karen Majewski
Auschwitz, Poland, and the Politics of Commemoration, 1945–1979, by Jonathan Huener
The Exile Mission: The Polish Political Diaspora and Polish Americans, 1939–1956, by Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann
The Grasinski Girls: The Choices They Had and the Choices They Made, by Mary Patrice Erdmans
Testaments: Two Novellas of Emigration and Exile, by Danuta Mostwin
SERIES ADVISORY BOARD
M. B. B. Biskupski, Central Connecticut State University
Robert E. Blobaum, West Virginia University
Anthony Bukoski, University of Wisconsin-Superior
Bogdana Carpenter, University of Michigan
Mary Patrice Erdmans, Central Connecticut State University
Thomas S. Gladsky, Central Missouri State University (ret.)
Padraic Kenney, University of Colorado at Boulder
John J. Kulczycki, University of Illinois at Chicago (ret.)
Ewa Morawska, University of Essex
Antony Polonsky, Brandeis University
Brian Porter, University of Michigan
James S. Pula, Purdue University North Central
Thaddeus C. Radzilowski, Piast Institute
Daniel Stone, University of Winnipeg
Adam Walaszek, Jagiellonian University
Theodore R. Weeks, Southern Illinois University
Testaments
Two Novellas of Emigration and Exile
Danuta Mostwin
Translated from the original Polish by Marta Erdman and Nina Dyke
OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS
ATHENS
Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701
© 2005 by Ohio University Press
Printed in the United States of America
All rights reserved
Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper
13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 5 4 3 2 1
Cover photo by Jacek Lech Mostwin
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Mostwin, Danuta.
[Testament Blazeja. English]
Testaments : two novellas of emigration and exile / Danuta Mostwin ; translated from the original Polish by Marta Erdman and Nina Dyke.— 1st ed.
p. cm. — (Ohio University Press Polish and Polish-American studies series) Includes bibliographical references.
ISBN 0-8214-1607-3 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-8214-1608-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)
1. Mostwin, Danuta—Translations into English. I. Erdman, Marta, 1921–1982. II. Dyke, Nina. III. Mostwin, Danuta. Jokasta. English. IV. Title. V. Series. PG7158.M64T4713 2005
891.8'5373—dc22
2005002787
ISBN 978-0-8214-4136-7 (e-book)
Publication of books in the Polish and Polish-American Studies Series has been made possible in part by the generous support of the following organizations:
Polish American Historical Association, New Britain, Connecticut
Stanislaus A. Blejwas Endowed Chair in Polish and Polish American Studies, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, Connecticut
The Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America, Inc., New York, New York
The Piast Institute: An Institute for Polish and Polish American Affairs, Detroit, Michigan
Contents
INTRODUCTION Danuta Mostwin’s Puzzles of Identity
JOANNA ROSTROPOWICZ CLARK
The Last Will of Blaise Twardowski
TRANSLATED BY MARTA ERDMAN
TRANSLATED BY NINA DYKE
AFTERWORD Found in Translation
A New Chapter in American Literature
THOMAS J. NAPIERKOWSKI
Appendix: The Fiction of Danuta Mostwin
Series Editor’s Preface
THE IMMIGRANT AGED, “the last of the first” as they have been called, experienced remarkable changes and transformations, both societal and personal, as they left or were expelled from the lands of their birth and started new lives for themselves abroad in places like America. Walls of language and privacy often stood between them and their grandchildren, barring them from telling their often poignant stories until death silenced their lips forever. But these elderly immigrants lived lives of hope and hurt, joy and sorrow, aspiration and resignation, lives worth remembering and recording. In Testaments: Two Novellas of Emigration and Exile, Danuta Mostwin recovers two such bittersweet stories of yesterday’s disappointments and tomorrow’s dreams.
Herself a World War II–era émigré, Danuta Mostwin is both an accomplished scholar and a well-published novelist whose fiction hitherto has remained untranslated, known almost exclusively to Polish-language readers in the United States and in her native Poland. The English translations of the two novellas presented here, Jocasta and The Last Will of Blaise Twardowski, represent the first complete works made accessible to the English-speaking public. Those who venture within the covers of this slim volume will be both touched and taught. Readers never again will see the old immigrant man or the elderly émigré woman the same way they may have seen them—or just looked past them—before encountering the memorable characters in Danuta Mostwin’s two stories. Scholars, students, and general readers will find themselves changed by this book.
Testaments: Two Novellas of Emigration and Exile is the sixth volume in the Ohio University Press Polish and Polish-American Studies Series. The series revisits the historical and contemporary experience of one of America’s largest European ethnic