Chwin, Stefan 1949-

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CHWIN, Stefan 1949-

(Max Lars)

PERSONAL: Born 1949, in Poland.

ADDRESSES: Home—Gdansk, Poland. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Harcourt, 6277 Sea Harbor Dr., Orlando, FL 32887.

CAREER: Novelist, essayist, and educator. Gdansk University, Gdansk, Poland, professor of history and literature.

AWARDS, HONORS: Andreas Gryphius prize, 1999.

WRITINGS:

Literatura i Zdrada: Od Konrada Wallenroda do Malej Apokalipsy (title means "The Brief History of a Certain Joke: Scenes from East-Central Europe"), Oficyna Literacka (Krakow, Poland), 1993.

Hanemann (novel), Marabut (Gdansk, Poland), 1996, translation by Philip Boehm published as Death in Danzig, Harcourt (Orlando, FL), 2004.

Esther, Tytul (Gdansk, Poland), 1999.

Krótka Historia Pewnego Zartu, Slowo/Obraz Terytoria (Gdansk, Poland), 1999.

Zloty Pelikan (title means "Golden Pelikan"), Tytul (Gdansk, Poland), 2002.

Kartki z Dziennika (title means "Sheets from a Diary"), Tytul (Gdansk, Poland), 2004.

AS MAX LARS; CHILDREN'S BOOKS

Ludzie-Skorpiony (title means "Scorpion People"), Pomorze (Bydgoszcz, Poland), 1984.

Czlowiek-Litera: Przygody Aleksandra Umwelta Podczas Akcji Specjalnej w Gorach Santa Cruz (title means "The Letter Man: The Adventures of Aleksander Umwelt during the Special Operation in the Santa Cruz Mountains"), Pomorze (Bydgoszcz, Poland), 1989.

SIDELIGHTS: Well known in Europe as an essayist and literary critic, Stefan Chwin is also a well-respected novelist in his native Poland. Hanemann, one of his most acclaimed novels, is the first to be translated into English, as Death in Danzig. Filled with plots and subplots, it is really the story of Danzig, which went from being a free city between the world wars to a city under Nazi control and then Communist control as part of Poland, when it was renamed Gdansk. "Under the stony gaze of the Spirit of History who resides first in the Nazi-controlled Rathaus and next in the communist Security Bureau, the Robinson Crusoes who survived the wreck of the old Gdansk, and the newcomers who have arrived from the east, try to start over in life," explained a contributor to the Culture Web site.

At the center of Chwin's novel is Hanemann, a German anatomy professor who is assigned the task of investigating a suspicious death. The victim is actually his own lover, Louisa, and even as the Russian army approaches, Hanemann refuses to flee the city before solving the mystery. Thus he becomes a kind of stranger in his own town, when the Russians arrive and nearly every German national is either killed or deported. At the same time, Polish refugees pour into the city, filling the abandoned houses. One of these, Piotr, the narrator of the story, becomes fascinated by Hanemann, a living symbol of Danzig's ghostly past trapped in Gdansk's turbulent present and increasingly under suspicion from the new Communist authorities. Piotr's family takes in yet another refugee, a suicidal Ukrainian named Hanka, who has already experienced the tragic nature of Soviet rule.

"Chwin skillfully describes a city in as much chaos as its inhabitants, striving anew to forge a new sense of identity," commented Booklist reviewer Michael Spinnella. There are numerous characters all struggling to come to grips with their new world, as Gdansk becomes a microcosm of the enormous upheavals of the mid-twentieth century. As Michael Hofmann put it in the London Guardian, Hanemann's "individual story is one part of Death in Danzig. Another, even more impressive, is a collective story of nameless, or barely named, people and, still more, of objects. Some chapters are choric inventories of their mute witness to history—an aestheticisation that is somehow more tender and revealing than any dramatisation." A Kirkus Reviews contributor concluded that "although Americans may find the historical terrain quite foreign, Chwin's is a masterful and important work that brilliantly highlights the power of fate and the true anguish it can cause." Writing in World Literature Today, Alice-Catherine Carls concluded that "Hanemann's many messages are subtly coded in the narrative, adding texture to a story set in a place and time that have just begun teaching us important lessons."