Another book launch

To another book launch this week! This time, the book in question is Piotr Frączak's Przypadki Anatola F. A book about the worldview of an ineffectual intellectual, failed by communism, a failure in capitalism, who dislikes the state and the market, who is insufficiently assertive to get the world he believes he deserves for himself. An unhurried dreamer; a bit of a loser. A Polish Everyman. Based on notes taken down by the author since 1984, the painful transition from one system to another, the dreams and disappointments are painfully and comically recorded.

Moni and I attend the packed launch as the book's illustrator is none other than our neighbour, Kamila Wojciechowicz, who provided 50 illustrations that give the book its quirky, offbeat character. Like Ronald Searle, Nicholas Bentley, Willie Rushton or (in particular) John Glashan, whose cartoons gave dozens of humorous British books a specific character, Kamila's illustrations have the potential to turn Przypadki Anatola F. into a Polish cult classic. And this is her first book!

Above: Kamila (left) signs a copy of Przypadki Anatola F. for Moni. In the bookshop where the launch takes place, Moni discovers a copy of Owadzie opowieści, written by her classmate at primary school, Jan Sienkiewicz. It seems the people she grew up with are all making names for themselves - and at such youthful ages!

Later, Moni and I met up in town with Eddie and had dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. The children ate themselves into a state of immobility - the portions were huge. As we left, it started to snow. Left: A pause to snap the Palace of Culture with the Hard Roc (missing its 'k') neon in the foreground. A clash of communism and capitalism that Anatol F. would be familiar with.