Michal Witkowski @ EIBF

 

Michal Witkowski’s Book Festival appearance had everything going for it. After a quick reading in the original Polish, Witkowski handed over to chair Rosemary Arnott, who jolted the sleepy Writer’s Retreat tent wide awake with a full-spirited reading from Witkowski’s hilarious and bawdily outrageous first novel Lovetown. The novel is about gay life in Poland under Communism, and stars two adorable, incorrigible queens Patricia and Lucretia, who look back on the bad old days with glee, reminiscing over their experiences with Russian soldiers, as of a lost idyll destroyed by AIDS, which spectre hangs over their stories. The question and answer session allowed Witkowski’s impressive grasp of social history to come to the fore, shedding light not only on the situation in Eastern Europe, but closer to home. Witkowski reminded us that a simple narrative of capitalism leading to increased tolerance and freedom is a fallacy. In fact, as Witkowski pointed out, lack of freedom can paradoxically give rise to diverse underground communities with their own rules and methods of socialising, whereas so-called tolerance can lead to bland homogeneity. The session overran, but we were all left wanting more, and walking home through the New Town, his words rang true. [Colin Herd]