Wszystkie języki świata

One day in Warsaw, ten years after communism: the hero drives his elderly father, cakes and all, to the hospital where he worked his whole life, to say goodbye to his colleagues. The outing stirs memories of childhood in the 1950s and 1960s, of holidays in the same resort year after year, of a mother convinced of her son's gifts who wanted him to be a pianist, a reciter, then a polyglot, with lessons in Russian, German, French and English that all came to nothing. He asks why he could never write, and remembers his mother's death and her last, silent phone call.

AI-generated summary

About the book

Form

Novel

Length

171 pages in the original

Genres

Family, Coming of age (assigned by AI)

Set in

Poland, 1950s–1990s

First published

2005 by Znak

Author's age

54 when first published

ISBN

9788324005598 (original)