This article is an attempt to identify the main themes in the literary work of Zygmunt Haupt, a Polish writer, journalist and painter, who emigrated to the United States in the aftermath of World War II. His writings show a keen awareness of the issue of absence/presence and the related problems of memory traits, identity and literary representation. Drawing on the psychoanalytical criticism of Jacques Lacan and Julia Kristeva and the philosophy of Jacques Derrida, this reading of Haupt’s fi ction, especially his short stories (whose collected edition was published in 2007 under the title The Basque Devil), is a critical reassessment of his work. As a storyteller he excels in the depiction of scenes of terror, desire and the uncanny. The article argues Haupt’s work represents not only a remarkable literary achievement but also offers an interesting study case for critics whose approach is founded on literary theory, psychoanalysis and anthropology.

This article focuses on paralogical figures (amphibology, equivocation, hypallage and syllepsis) in the poems of Jan Zych. Paralogicisms are phrases in which the combination of logical and syntactical form produces an irresolvable semantic conundrum. The article is divided into three parts, each dealing with one aspect of Zych’s handling of the opposition of distance and proximity: air metaphors expressive of the channel of poetic speech; communication by post (letters); and images of the labyrinth. The paralogical figures are discussed in terms of their function as textual building-blocks, a mark of the author’s subjectivity, and an invitation for performative reading. In this way, Zych’s poems, in particular Labirynty (The Labyrinths) are reconstituted as literary performances, analogous to the labyrinthine prose of J. L. Borges and Octavio Paz.

This article deals with the rise in the Polish literature of 1970s of a new type of biographical novel, associated with the fi rst post-war generation of writers like Bohdan Zadura, Julian Kornhauser, Adam Zagajewski, Henryk Lothamer, Stanisław Piskor and Donat Kirsch. Their work is subsumed here under the label ‘new fi ction’ primarily because of its literary context, i.e. the late-modern fears and uncertainties culminating in the assumption that literature reached the state of exhaustion. The article argues that the ‘new fi ction’ acquired its distinctive character from a preoccupation with the biographical narrative and a sense of generational identity. The writers who defi ned themselves in these generational terms saw their prospect of following their aspirations and building up authentic lives weighed down by the constricting realities, and, as the article claims, resigned themselves – at best not entirely – to this sad conclusion.