Stanisława Przybyszewska
Pact with the Devil on my own Skin

Until ten years ago, Stanisława Przybyszewska (1901–35) existed in the public consciousness, if at all, as the bastard daughter of Stanisław Przybyszewski, a prolific author of torrid satanic romances, known for parading around Krakow in a monocle and top hat and holding midnight orgies at the Jama Michalika cafe. Beyond that, it was known she was infatuated with the French Revolution and had written a very good play, The Danton Affair, which was favorably received in its day, and revived by Andrzej Wajda in his film Danton (1983).

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Then in 2015, Przybyszewska’s novels and short stories, culled out of an archive, began quietly making their appearance. They revealed an utterly different writer — frank, formally adventurous and challenging, radical for her day when it came to gender politics. The short stories here, selected from two volumes, range from the near-autobiographical to the historical, sometimes blurring the two. Men are seldom useful as more than muses or playthings — maternity is a grotesque nightmare. Her experiences of morphine addiction and life in abject poverty inspire more than one story here. But most of all, Stanisława Przybyszewska is a rare and shimmering example of a full-blooded female avant-garde writer from Central Europe’s illustrious 1930s, taking her rightful place in a tradition that includes Bruno Schulz, Franz Kafka, and Hermann Broch.