White Nights (2023)

A haunting series of 13 interconnected stories concerning the various tragedies and misfortunes that befall a group of people in a village in Poland’s Beskid Mountains.

The book was longlisted for The International Booker Prize 2024, when the judges were William Kentridge, Natalie Diaz, Eleanor Wachtel, Romesh Gunesekera and Aaron Robertson. They said of the book:

‘A haunting series of interconnected stories set in a small town in the Beskid Mountains of Poland, a place enveloped by the continuous daylight of the summer months. Through a cast of characters each facing their own existential crises, Honek crafts a narrative mosaic that explores themes of isolation, identity, death, and the longing for connection. The book’s strength lies in its ability to capture the intense, dreamlike quality of its setting, where the natural phenomenon of ‘white nights’ serves as a backdrop for the characters’ introspective journeys. White Nights is a dark, lyrical exploration of the ways in which people seek meaning and belonging in a transient world.’

Urszula Honek (born 1987) is the author of four poetry books and one short story collection. Her work has been featured in both print and online journals, newspapers, magazines and literary publications. She is the winner of the Grand Prix of the Rainer Maria Rilke Poetry Competition, the Kraków UNESCO City of Literature Award, the Adam Włodek Award and the Stanisław Barańczak Award, as part of the Poznań Literary Prize. For Białe noce (White Nights), she was nominated for the International Grand Continent 2022 Award, the Witold Gombrowicz Literary Award and Polityka’s Passport Award. In 2023, she won both the Conrad Award and the Kościelski Award, which is given to the most promising Polish writer under the age of 40. She comes from Racławice, near Gorlice.

Kate Webster is a translator of Polish to English, based in London. She began translating in 2012, during a three-year stint as a teacher in Szczecin and Warsaw, Poland. Kate has translated many short stories and essays for publication in anthologies and online media and, in September 2018, took part in the Emerging Translator Mentorship Programme organised by the National Centre for Writing, where she was mentored by Antonia Lloyd-Jones. In 2022, she published her first book-length translation, The Map by Barbara Sadurska, for which she was shortlisted for the Oxford-Weidenfeld Prize 2023. She has also worked on a children’s book about holidays and festivals from around the world and a non-fiction account of perceptions of disability in Poland. White Nights is her second book-length translation.

The Booker Prize website features a Q&A with Urszula Honek and Kate Webster, and a reading guide to the book, as well as a link to this review by Jennifer Brough in Litro Magazine.