Sefer (Mingling Voices)

Poetic, witty, and faintly surreal, Sefer delicately explores the legacy of the Holocaust for the postwar generation. The novel's protagonist, Jan Sefer, is a psychotherapist living in Vienna who finally addresses his own family background during a long postponed visit to Kraków, his father's birthplace. Much like memory itself, Sefir speaks to us obliquely, through the juxtapositioin of images and vignettes. In their translation of Ewa Lipska's first novel, Barbara Bogoczek and Tony Howard deftly capture the poet's unmistakable voice - cool and precise, gently ironic, and deeply humane.

Born in 1945 in Kraków, Ewa Lipska is one of Poland's best-known poets. She cofounded and was for many years the poetry editor of the literary magazine Pismo, and has been recognized with the Pen Club Award for Lifetime Literary Achievement among other honors. Barbara Bogoczek, based in London, and Tony Howard, professor of English at Warwick University in Coventry, have together translated a number of works by Polish authors.