House of Day, House of Night

Writings From An Unbound Europe.

Nowa Ruda is a small town in Silesia, a region that has belonged at different times to Poland, Germany, and the former Czechoslovakia. When the narrator moves there, she discovers that everyone—and everything—has a story to tell.

With the help of Marta, her enigmatic neighbor, the narrator gathers these stories one by one, tracing the history of Nowa Ruda from its founding to the lives of its saints; from the caller who wins the daily radio quiz to the man whose death sparks international tension when he collapses on the border, one leg in Poland, the other in the Czech Republic. Each story becomes a brick, interlocking with the others to form a monument as vast as the town itself.

What emerges is a vision of history as infinite: that even the most modest place contains boundless connections, and that by digging into the roots of a life, a house, or a neighborhood, we uncover ties not only to ourselves and our dreams, but to the entire universe.

Winner of the Gunter Grass Prize.