Get your first unruly read for just £9.95 (£13.00) when you select monthly rolling. Use code WELCOME.

White Nights

by Urszula Honek

Translated from Polish by Kate Webster.

Published 2023

Paperback, 162 pages

Price: £12.99

Out of stock

Want free delivery?

Join Good Book Club and enjoy exclusive member perks – like unlimited free delivery across our site. Plus:

  1. A brilliant newly-released book from an indie publisher delivered every month
  2. Free access to author events online and in-person
  3. Monthly extras you actually want – like signed copies and notes from authors

Join now for free delivery

Quick take

Interconnected stories of survival and existence in a Polish village. Kate Webster's translation brings Honek's poetic prose to life, offering a poignant narrative of universal themes—ruin and hope.

Synopsis

White Nights, the debut short story collection from poet Urszula Honek, is a series of thirteen interconnected stories concerning the various tragedies and misfortunes that befall a group of people...

Show more

White Nights, the debut short story collection from poet Urszula Honek, is a series of thirteen interconnected stories concerning the various tragedies and misfortunes that befall a group of people who all grew up and live(d) in the same village in the Beskid Niski region, in southern Poland. Each story centres itself around a different character and how it is that they manage to cope, survive or merely exist, despite, and often in ignorance of, the poverty, disappointment, tragedy, despair, brutality and general sense of futility that surrounds them. Urszula relates to us, with the sincerest care and honesty, a localised, yet so clearly universal, story of ruin and hope: a story where the protagonists do not ask to be understood, but merely to be seen and to be heard. Kate Webster’s brilliant translation of Urszula’s poetic, yet often earthen, prose brings us to places that, though they are seldom seen in literature, we may never forget.

Show less

  • Urszula Honek was born in Racławice, Poland in 1987. She is the author of three poetry books: Sporysz (2015), Pod wezwaniem (2018), Zimowanie (2021) and a short story collection: Białe noce (2022).

  • Indie publisher MTO Press is a social enterprise publishing literature by women and non-binary authors. They donate at least 50% of their profits to various causes depending on the book in question and the aims of the author.

    See all books by MTO Press

More books from MTO Press