The Wisdom of Otherness*

Eliza Kącka, a writer, a literary critic, an author of the book entitled Yesterday You Were Angry in Green visited Solec at the end of the literary festival. The meeting was led by Kasia Szymańska who asked the author about what the title crush zone is, about what image of Polish society emerges from her notes of living speech, about whether the language does not become stunted, about the writer’s literary inspirations, about what it means to bring out the evil spirit and what the author argues with in her work. The students were curious about her opinion on the polyphony of Warsaw, they asked about her daughter’s reaction to her autobiographical book entitled Yesterday you Were Angry In Green and her reflection on the condition of everyday communication among Poles. The author talked about her obsession with taking notes and her brilliant listening memory, about being a kind of anthropologist going out into the city with an ear sensitive to the element of communication, who never adds morals, who wants the situation to speak for itself. The writer has the impression that people miss in communication and that the language becomes poorer, in which the energy flow of words decreases.  The writer is inspired by the works of  Miron Białoszewski and Guillaume Apollinaire. The author sees herself as a citizen of the zone, a peripheral area that can be crushed, and her weapon is what she hears.

Bringing out the evil spirit is a kind of readiness to transform oneself, openness to others, abandoning expectations. Kącka does not like role assuming, she protests against fixed social notions, but tries to keep her adversary at a level of surprise. In her opinion, Warsaw has become multilingual, the city’s linguistic imagination has changed, and at the same time not only the vocabulary of words but also the practice of contact is decreasing. Socially we are becoming less talkative.  The writer’s daughter is happy with being a literary heroine, but at the same time she has her own vision of the past. The author herself, also thanks to the experience of being a mother, stated that: she had gained sensual vigilance.  

(text: Beata Ciacek, *the title comes from the book entitled Yesterday You Were Angry in Green; photo: Beata Ciacek)