The first translation of painter and writer J zef Czapski's inspiring lectures on Proust, first delivered in a prison camp in the Soviet Union during World War II.
J zef Czapski (1896-1993), a painter and writer, and an eyewitness
to the turbulent history of the twentieth century, was born into an
aristocratic family in Prague and grew up in Poland under czarist
domination. After receiving his baccalaureate in Saint Petersburg,
he went on to study law at Imperial University and was present
during the February Revolution of 1917. Briefly a cavalry officer
in World War I, decorated for bravery in the Polish-Soviet War,
Czapski went on to attend the Academy of Fine Arts in Krak w and
then moved to Paris to paint. He spent seven years in Paris, moving
in social circles that included friends of Proust and Bonnard, and
it was only in 1931 that he returned to Warsaw, and began
exhibiting his work and writing art criticism. When Germany invaded
Poland in September 1939, Czapski sought active duty as a reserve
officer. Captured by the Germans, he was handed over to the Soviets
as a prisoner of war, though for reasons that remain mysterious he
was not among the twenty-two thousand Polish officers who were
summarily executed by the Soviet secret police. Czapski described
his experiences in the Soviet Union in two books- Memories of
Starobielsk (forthcoming from NYRB) and Inhuman Land (available
from NYRB), the latter of which describes his continuing efforts to
find out what had happened to his missing and murdered colleagues.
Unwilling to live in postwar communist Poland, Czapski set up a
studio outside of Paris. His essays appeared in Kultura, the
leading intellectual journal of the Polish emigration that he
helped establish; his painting underwent a great final flowering in
the 1980s. Czapski died, nearly blind, at ninety-six.
Eric Karpeles, painter, writer and translator, is the author of
Almost Nothing- The 20th Century Art and Life of J zef Czapski. His
comprehensive guide, Paintings in Proust, considers the
intersection of literary and visual aesthetics in the work of the
great French novelist. He has written about the paintings of poet
Elizabeth Bishop and about the end of life as seen through the
works of Emily Dickinson, Gustav Mahler and Mark Rothko. Painter of
the Sanctuary and the Mary and Laurance Rockefeller Chapel, he has
also translated Lorenza Foschini's Proust's Overcoat. He lives in
Northern California.
". . . an astonishing read. . . they deliver the pleasure of
witnessing Czapski. . . delivering erudite talks that not only
recall entire sections of Proust’s novel by heart but also provide
valuable insights into what makes the 4,215-page work a territory
so many of us continue to visit so frequently and with so much
reverence." —Liel Leibovitz, Tablet Magazine
"This gentle, tenacious, adamantine figure has been far too little
known in the West—until now. New York Review Books recently
published a moving and strikingly original biography by Eric
Karpeles, Almost Nothing: The 20th-Century Art and Life of Józef
Czapski; a new translation by Antonia Lloyd-Jones of Inhuman Land:
Searching for the Truth in Soviet Russia, 1941-42; and Mr.
Karpeles’s translation of Czapski’s Lost Time: Lectures on Proust
in a Soviet Prison Camp. Together these books document Czapski’s
physical and spiritual survival during a nightmare era, but, more
than that, they re-create an overlooked life, one marked by an
exemplary measure of modesty, moral clarity and artistic richness.
Moreover, Mr. Karpeles, a California-based painter and art critic,
has ignited international interest in Czapski’s artwork.” —Cynthia
Haven, The Wall Street Journal
“Lost Time is one of the most remarkable and inspiring texts to
have emerged from the experience of surviving and resisting
20th-century barbaris." —John Gray, New Statesman
"The Polish painter and writer Józef Czapski lived through almost
the entire twentieth century as an exception to the rule. A
pacifist who became a Polish army officer being deported to a
Soviet prison camp in 1939, he was one of very few to survive the
Katyn massacre perpetrated by Stalin’s secret police the following
year....He was both a patriot and a European in the deepest sense,
with friends and family connections across the continent. In this
year’s centenary of independence regained, a new generation of
Poles in a country at the crossroads must decide whether Czapski’s
vision will also be theirs." —Stanley Bill, Times Literary
Supplement
"To think of these radiant, incisive reflections delivered in the
stinking cold of a Soviet prisoner-of-war mess hall beggars
imagination. A remnant of the Polish officer class done to death en
mass by Stalin, Czapski was—without benefit of books or notes—among
the greatest Proustians. Long may his name live." —Benjamin
Taylor
“Czapski sometimes speaks of himself—but always in terms of the
ceaseless battle he wages for clear vision, for full use of his
gifts, the battle to imbue his life with maximal meaning.” —Adam
Zagajewski
 |
Ask a Question About this Product More... |
|
