Chmurdalia

Under my window, a Gypsy stood, all smeared with blood, singing to her daughter Jadzia Chmura. The mother draws out her voice, luring with siren-like song and circling like a wound-up toy. The daughter is motionless and silent; as she fell asleep, so she sleeps. Wake up, sleeping princess! Dominika does not hear Jadzia''s words, only empty sounds that fall like swirling scraps of matter in the water. The worst part is that nothing can be counted in her dream. She starts from one, but already two slips away and dissolves, while white shoals come rushing in its place—swarms, clouds. Sometimes Dominika feels a scent and clings to it like Ariadne''s thread; the spicy smell of colonial shops, exotic bazaars she once read about, and the smell of burnt meat intertwined. [Nominated for the Nike Literary Award 2011] Joanna Bator is a writer by profession. She holds degrees in cultural studies and philosophy. She defended her PhD in philosophy at the Polish Academy of Sciences. For literature, she abandoned academic work. For her report "Japanese Fan" (2004), she received the Beata Pawlak Award. Her first novel "Sand Mountain" (2009) brought her international success. Her Wałbrzych trilogy – "Sand Mountain," "Chmurdalia" (2010), and "Darkness Almost Night" (2012) – has been translated into many languages. The novel "Darkness Almost Night" won the Nike Award in 2013. German translations of "Sand Mountain" and "Darkness Almost Night" reached the finals of the International German Literary Prize; for "Chmurdalia," Joanna Bator received the Swiss Spycher Prize in 2014. She has also been honored with several other German awards: in 2017 for lifetime achievement with the Stefan Heym Literary Award and Usedomer Literary Award; and in 2018 with Hermann Hesse Literary Award. The author lives in Podkowa Leśna. In 2017, her first Japanese novel “Purezento” was published.