This book is the first critical attempt made in any language to re-examine the entire oeuvre of Bruno Jasieński (1901-1938). It takes into account the writer's lifelong concerns but places them in the context of the universal value of his writing, generated by his modernist passions and his fascination with the grotesque - an artistic device that was consonant with his need to portray life in all its complexities. The author relies on the grotesque as an element that unifies Jasieński's futuristic poetry with his prose. Especially important in this regard is the close reading of Jasieński's satiric grotesques written in the Soviet Union. The author does not avoid the intricacies and difficult questions of Jasieński's ideological commitment but focuses mainly on the consequences that the highly ambivalent and ambiguous nature of the grotesque has on the interpretation of his work.

Bruno Jasieński was a bilingual Polish-Russian writer who died in exile in Siberia in 1939. This volume traces his literary evolution. The introductory biographical sketch is followed by a discussion of Jasieński's contribution to Polish poetry, specifically the Futurist movement which, like its parallels in Russia and Italy, revolutionized poetic language. An analysis and evaluation of Jasieński's prose work sheds light on the relationship between politics and literature in early twentieth-century Poland and Russia. Most of Jasieński's novels and short stories were written in the approved Soviet tradition of Socialist Realism. His Man Changes His Skin is considered one of the best Soviet industrial novels of the 1930s. The author's comprehensive and skillful treatment of Jasieński's literary production, the first to appear in English, also makes a valuable contribution to the knowledge of Futurism in Eastern Europe and Socialist Realism in the Soviet Union. The volume contains numerous quotations from Polish and Russian literature, both in English translation (prepared by the author) and in the original. It will be of interest to students of Slavic literature, comparative literature, and the literature of ideology.

The first part of the yearbook contains ten essays on Futurist art and literature in Italy, France, Russia, Poland, Portugal and the former colony of Goa. Among other things, early Futurist publishing and propaganda initiatives by means of manifestos, press releases, and newssheets are examined, as well as Athos Casarini's artistic and political work undertaken in Italy and the USA. Articles in the second part deal with the 30th anniversary of the international Academy of Zaum as well as various conferences, exhibitions and publications celebrating the centenary of Zenitism in Serbia and Croatia. Critical responses to exhibitions, conferences and publications as well as a bibliographical section with information on 139 recent book publications on Futurism conclude the yearbook.

This carefully curated collection consists of 16 chapters by leading Polish and world literature scholars from the United States, Canada, Italy, and, of course, Poland. An historical approach gives readers a panoramic view of Polish authors and their explicit or implicit contributions to world literature. Indeed, the volume shows how Polish authors, from Jan Kochanowski in the 16th century to the 2018 Nobel laureate Olga Tokarczuk, have engaged with their foreign counterparts and other traditions, active participants in the global literary network and the conversations of their day. The volume features views of Polish literature and culture within theories of world literature and literary systems, with a particular attention paid to the resurgence of the idea of the physical book as a cultural artifact. This perspective is especially important since so much of today's global literary output stems from Anglophone perceptions of what constitutes literary quality and tastes. The collection also sheds light on specific issues pertaining to Poland, such as the idea of Polishness, and global phenomena, including social and economic advancement as well as ecological degradation. Some of the authors discussed, like the Romantic poet Adam Mickiewicz or the 1980 Nobel laureate Czeslaw Milosz, were renowned far beyond the borders of their country, while others, like the contemporary travel writer and novelist Andrzej Stasiuk, embrace regionalism, seeing as they do in their immediate surroundings a synecdoche of the world at large. Nevertheless, the picture of Polish literature and Polish authors that emerges from these articles is that of a diverse, cosmopolitan cohort engaged in a mutually rewarding relationship with what the late French critic Pascale Casanova has called “the world republic of letters.”

I Burn Paris has remained one of Poland's most uncomfortable masterstrokes of literature since its initial and controversial serialization by Henri Barbusse in 1928 in L'Humanite (for which Jasienski was deported for disseminating subversive literature). It tells the story of a disgruntled factory worker who, finding himself on the streets, takes the opportunity to poison Paris's water supply. With the deaths piling up, we encounter Chinese communists, rabbis, disillusioned scientists, embittered Russian emigres, French communards and royalists, American millionaires and a host of others as the city sections off into ethnic enclaves and everyone plots their route of escape. At the heart of the cosmopolitan city is a deep-rooted xenophobia and hatred - the one thread that binds all these groups together. As Paris is brought to ruin, Jasienski issues a rallying cry to the downtrodden of the world, mixing strains of "The Internationale" with a broadcast of popular music. With its montage strategies reminiscent of early avant-garde cinema and fist-to-the-gut metaphors, I Burn Paris has lost none of its vitality and vigor. Ruthlessly dissecting various utopian fantasies, Jasienski is out to disorient, and he has a seemingly limitless ability to transform the Parisian landscape into the product of disease-addled minds. An exquisite example of literary Futurism and Catastrophism, the novel presents a filthy, degenerated world where factories and machines have replaced the human and economic relationships have turned just about everyone into a prostitute. Yet rather than cliche and simplistic propaganda, there is an immediacy to the writing, and the modern metropolis is starkly depicted as only superficially cosmopolitan, as hostile and animalistic at its core. This English translation of I Burn Paris fills a major gap in the availability of works from the interwar Polish avant-garde, an artistic phenomenon receiving growing attention of late.

This play, by Futurist poet Bruno Jasienski, is an outstanding example of the joining of left-wing politics and avant-garde interest in human mechanization that characterized the experimental theatre of Poland in the inter-war years. Stalinism and the purges cut short Jasienski's career and prevented productions of his play for many years - except for a brilliant constructivist staging in Prague in 1933. The Mannequins' Ball can now take its place along with Capek's R.U.R. as one of the major twentieth-century dramas making use of the themes and techniques of human automata. Reproduced in this volume are the eight woodcuts by Moor which accompanied the original Moscow publication in 1931.