[id2008]

The novel "A Dreambook for Our Time" (original 1963) was published in the Penguin "Writers From the Other Europe" series in 1976, when the Cold War was still raging and the Poles had been largely forgotten.

The blurb on the back gives a good description:

The world of dreams and the world of waking meet in this extraordinary book. (...) The time is the early 1960s; the narrator, a young Pole, emerges from a coma after trying to poison himself. He is surrounded by provincial villagers, whose lives were forever shattered by the trauma of World War II. The incoherent mass of his own wartime memories arises - nightmarish images of guerrilla warfare, of blood, cruelty, betrayal, and guilt.

When I read it, years ago, it made quite an impression on me.

Amazon entry for his books:

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/se...usz%20Konwicki

Wikipedia article at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tadeusz_Konwicki

There's a good portrait of the author at:

http://www.culture.pl/en/culture/art...nwicki_tadeusz

Translations:

English: A DREAMBOOK FOR OUR TIME / SENNIK WSPOLCZESNY, The MIT Press, 1970 THE ANTHROPOS-SPECTRE-BEAST / ZWIERZOCZLEKOUPIOR, New York: S. Phillips, 1977 THE POLISH COMPLEX / KOMPLEKS POLSKI, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1982 A MINOR APOCALYPSE / MALA APOKALIPSA, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1983 MOONRISE, MOONSET / WSCHODY I ZACHODY KSIEZYCA, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1987 BOHIN MANOR, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1990 NEW AVENUE AND VICINITY / NOWY SWIAT I OKOLICE, New York: Farrar Straus Giroux, 1991