Poetry. Translation. Seemingly a set of prose ballads about the southeastern tip of Poland, TALES OF GALICIA brilliantly blurs the line between the short-story genre and the novel, while giving a vivid, poetic portrait of an imaginary village that was once part of a vibrant collective farm system. It is a part of Poland that - once inhabited by Poles, Ukrainians, and Jews - suddenly became homogenous after the war. Those who came to live in this region formed their own peculiar culture that lacked any sort of historical connection to what had preceded it. The village became depressed, its inhabitants largely unemployed and spending most of their time drinking in the pub. But rather than dark, naturalistic dirge, Stasiuk exhibits a Hrabalian flare for language and description that turns the banality and drudgery of these lives into poetry, with a final redemption scene that is at once comical, moving, and starkly beautiful.

Galicia was created at the first partition of Poland in 1772 and disappeared in 1918. Yet, in slightly over a century, the idea of Galicia came to have meaning for both the peoples who lived there and the Habsburg government that ruled it. Indeed, its memory continues to exercise a powerful fascination for those who live in its former territories and for the descendants of those who emigrated out of Galicia. The idea of Galicia was largely produced by the cultures of two cities, Lviv and Cracow. Making use of travelers' accounts, newspaper reports, and literary works, Wolff engages such figures as Emperor Joseph II, Metternich, Leopold von Sacher-Masoch, Ivan Franko, Stanisław Wyspiański, Tadeusz "Boy" Żeleński, Isaac Babel, Martin Buber, and Bruno Schulz. He shows the exceptional importance of provincial space as a site for the evolution of cultural meanings and identities, and analyzes the province as the framework for non-national and multi-national understandings of empire in European history.

This is the story of Galicia, once a crown land of the Austrian Empire, located in the center of Europe. Although largely forgotten today, Galicia was a vibrant, multicultural place where the lives of numerous ethnic and religious groups were intertwined for generations. Galician Trails explores every facet of this long-gone land, from tiny farming villages tucked into mountain passes, to towns filled with a variety of small industries and craftspeople, to modern cities with the conveniences of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. The political struggles and wise compromises that kept Galicia's citizens together for centuries, and the tragic forces that ultimately tore Galicia apart, unfold here before our eyes. When Andrew Zalewski set out to learn a bit more about his grandmother, little did he know that he was embarking on the journey of a lifetime-one that would take him back to faraway Galicia. Along the way, he encountered many of his ancestors, from simple sheep farmers to nobles, from men who helped establish railroads-the exciting new technology of the late nineteenth century-to pioneering professional women of the early twentieth. One of the latter was the author's grandmother, Helena Regiec Sobolewska, a talented educator and a determined, independent woman. She raised a daughter single-handedly through the turmoil of the Great War and the little-known conflicts that followed it. Although the real Galicia disappeared from maps long ago, it will live on in the memory of anyone who travels there through the richly illustrated pages of Galician Trails. This book is for you if you are interested to Discover the rich lives of those who lived in Galicia in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries Find out something about your Austrian, Jewish, Polish, or Ukrainian ancestors who once lived in the land that is divided today between Poland and Ukraine See how new mixed with old to change people's lives Learn little-known details of how World War I and the events that followed forever changed the lives of the people of Galicia

The story of the diverse communities of Eastern Europe’s borderlands in the centuries prior to World War II “A powerful combination of history and personal memoir . . . A richly contextual, skillfully woven historical study.”—Kirkus Reviews (starred review) Focusing on the former province of Galicia, this book tells the story of Europe’s eastern borderlands, stretching from the Baltic to the Balkans, through the eyes of the diverse communities of migrants who settled there for centuries and were murdered or forcibly removed from the borderlands in the course of World War II and its aftermath. Omer Bartov explores the fates and hopes, dreams and disillusionment of the people who lived there, and, through the stories they told about themselves, reconstructs who they were, where they came from, and where they were heading. It was on the borderlands that the expanding great empires—German, Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman—overlapped, clashed, and disintegrated. The civilization of these borderlands was a mix of multiple cultures, languages, ethnic groups, religions, and nations that similarly overlapped and clashed. The borderlands became the cradle of modernity. Looking back at it tells us where we came from.

Journey through Poland, Ukraine, Slovenia, and other places neglected by tourists, with “an accomplished stylist with an eye for telling detail” (Irvine Welsh). Andrzej Stasiuk is a restless and indefatigable traveler. By car, train, bus, and ferry, he goes from his native Poland to Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Slovenia, Albania, Moldova, and Ukraine—to small towns and villages with strangely evocative names. “The heart of my Europe,” he tells us, “beats in Sokolów Podlaski and in Huși. It does not beat in Vienna.” In Comrat, a funeral procession moves slowly down the main street, the open coffin on a pickup truck, an old woman dressed in black brushing away the flies above the face of the deceased. In Soroca, he locates a baroque-Byzantine-Tatar-Turkish encampment, to meet Gypsies. And all the way to Babadag, between the Baltic Coast and the Black Sea, Stasiuk indulges his curiosity and his love for the forgotten places and people of Europe. “There isn’t quite a name for the region that holds the Polish writer Andrzej Stasiuk in thrall. The general drift is from ‘the land of King Ubu to the land of Count Dracula’, Poland to Romania. . . . Its nucleus is the landlocked centre of Central Europe; its protoplasm spreads like an amoeba through the Balkans. It cannot be convincingly mapped. . . . As travel writing, this is unconventional, but as literature profoundly authentic.” —The Independent (UK) “A mesmerizing, not-to-be-missed trek through a little-visited region of the world.” —Kirkus Reviews “A eulogy for the old Europe, the Europe both in and out of time, the Europe now lost in the folds of the map.” —The Guardian (UK)

Leopold von Sacher-Masoch (1836-1895), the author of Venus in Furs, is known for his tales of dominant women and suffering men, if indeed he is remembered at all today. But in his own lifetime he was also famous as the author of vibrant tales from Galicia, the exotic eastern edge of the Austrian empire, where he championed the cause of the region's most oppressed minorities, the Ruthenians and the Jews. This collection focuses on some of his better-known Jewish tales. Sacher-Masoch's unusual ability to capture the essence of a person or place with a telling detail brings this vanished world of Galician Jewry back to life in all its splendor and all its squalor, mixing the grays, browns, and blacks of European Realism with the bright, sparkling colors of legend, myth, fairy tale, and tradition. Long forgotten in the German and English-speaking countries, his work is currently enjoying a modest revival among scholars and general readers alike.

*** EVERYTHING BUT THE SQUEAL *** Makes you want to get on the next flight to Santiago and eat cocido! Rick Stein, TV chef "Delicious" - Time Magazine "Fascinating" - The Economist "Enjoyable and witty" - Waterstones "Mouthwatering" - LA Times "Raucous, affectionate" - Irish Times "Fascinating and hilarious" - Toronto Star *** John Barlow, a self-confessed glutton, finds himself in a meat-lover’s dream. Galicia, in the misty north-western cormer of ‘green’ Spain, is a place where they revere and consume every part of the pig. This starts Barlow thinking about the nature of our relationship with food – what’s delicious, what’s not, and what sort of obligation we have to the animals we eat. Over the course of one glorious year, Barlow tries the patience of his vegetarian wife as he goes the whole hog and vows to eat every part of a Galician pig - everything but the squeal. In his travels he takes part in a thousand-year-old antthrowing festival of Laza, makes pig-bladder puddings for carnival, and manages to taste every other part of the animal, from snout to tail. All washed down with local wine! In the tradition of Bill Bryson, Calvin Trillin and Anthony Bourdain, Everything but the Squeal is an adventure in extreme eating, a hilariously quirky travel book, and a perceptive look at how what we eat makes us who we are. First pubished by Farrar, Straus and Giroux in the USA. *** Reviews With good humor and shameless enthusiasm, he has written a delicious meat note. Verdict: Read. Time Magazine ...the attraction of Mr Barlow’s book is that he goes well beyond the business of eating. He gives us a fascinating journal of his Galician wanderings. The Economist Like Bill Bryson, Mr. Barlow has canny comic timing. What both writers get by on is cerebral charm that can verge on slapstick. New York Times An enjoyable and witty journal of gourmet wanderings in Galicia. Waterstone's Books Quarterly Perhaps even more satisfying than his madcap extreme eating and cooking experiences are Barlow's quotable observations about Galicians. New York Post A mouthwatering adventure. LA Times A raucous, affectionate road trip, on which you don’t know where the next meal is coming from. Irish Times Fascinating and hilarious. Toronto Star Charmingly informative and witty. Publishers Weekly Barlow is a very fine writer, and exhibits genius in figuring out new ways to describe food. Edmonton Journal One of the funniest and most moving stories of the so-called ‘new Spain’. La Nación (Argentina) A most compelling and delicious book... This is a fine and noteworthy addition to any serious Spanish food library, and a must-read for anyone contemplating a trip into this green corner of Spain. Hollywood Reporter Barlow is a companionable guide expounding upon history, traditions and the personalities of Galicia. His writing style is quick, lively and filled with delicious details. He takes readers on a sublime journey of the senses. Publishers Weekly (starred review) Barlow is a writer first and foremost, not just another foodie looking for a publisher to pick up his tapas tab. He embraces his adopted culture with affectionate and knowing ribbing... A savory travelogue with insights that go beyond taste and texture. Kirkus keywords: spain and spanish food, galicia and north west spain, humorous travel books about spain, northern spain and food like cocido, rick stein, the pilgrims way in santiago de compostela, memoirs of an englishman abroad