About the Author

Jerzy Pilch is one of Poland's most important contemporary writers and journalists. In addition to his long-running satirical newspaper column, Pilch has published several novels, and has been nominated for Poland's prestigious NIKE Literary Award four times; he finally won the Award in 2001 for The Mighty Angel. His novels have been translated into numerous languages.

David Frick

is a professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley.

Reviews

"...it is the grotesquery of Pilch's buffoonery that makes A Thousand Peaceful Cities such an urbane pleasure."—Steven G. Kellman, Barnes and Nobles Review

"A mind-bending romp by Polish journalist and novelist Jerzy Pilch, miraculously translated by David Frick and published this month by Open Letter."—Anne Kjellberg, Little Star

While the idea of a quixotic assassination attempt as rite of passage seems ridiculous, it offers Pilch — a prize-winning Polish novelist and newspaper columnist — a way to get at the absurdity of politics, the unbridgeable gap between public and private life."—David L. Ulin, Los Angeles Times

"Jerzy Pilch, author of The Mighty Angel, has written a moving, bittersweet meditation on family, responsibility, and the passage of time."—Rebecca Oppenheimer, Howard County Times

"...the unruly, wonderfully erudite, and hilariously surreal product of a boisterous imagination set loose."—Valentina Zanca, Words Without Borders

"[Pilch] slashes mercilessly at the holy of holiest of his own nation. He ridicules its virtues and its shortcomings; he spares neither hero nor villain."—Sally Boss, The Sarmatian Review

"With his latest, Pilch masterfully negotiates sentiment with a clear-eyed vision of his autobiographical narrator’s shortcomings and disappointments, suggesting a Dubliners set in Krakow."—Publishers Weekly (starred)