SWALLOWING MERCURY by Wioletta Greg

Translated by Eliza Marciniak

The familiar and the fabulous collide in this deceptively whimsical coming-of-age novel set in the fictional Polish village of Hektary. Wiola is a good Catholic girl with a wild imagination. She experiences the world with a sense of wonder and magic, despite the dark goings on around her. It is the dawn of the 1980s. The Communist regime teeters on the brink. Lech Wałęsa nabs the Nobel. Pope John Paul II is set to visit. Modernity and tradition are going head to head in a fight to the end. And while Wiola rides the wave of change, she seems almost oblivious to the malice of those seeking to take advantage of her.

Loosely autobiographical, Swallowing Mercury beautifully captures a lost world, where fact and fable co-exist, each as believable (or unbelievable) as the other. It comes as little surprise that Greg is best known as a poet - this story in superbly hewn vignettes veritably sings. Even when facing down horrors, be they historical or personal (apparently there were lots of lecherous a-holes in Hektary), Wiola’s voice remains kind, curious and charmingly defiant. She is simply a delight to be around.

A hymn to what now is gone.

Swallowing Mercury by Wioletta Greg (Tr. Eliza Marciniak)
Portobello Books, 2017
143 pages