A Little Black Book of Wanton Women

May 15, 2012
novel | pb | 276 pgs
5.5" x 8.5"
978-1-934824-40-5

Set in 1980s Kraków, after the time of martial law, Pilch’s wildly funny and beloved novel, A Little Black Book of Wanton Women, centers around Gustaw, a failed poet who now provides tours of the city to visiting scholars. In this particular case, he’s leading a Swedish scholar around the city, speaking to him in broken English, dreaming up a great work of Polish literature he would like to write, and getting totally wasted. 

Stories about historical landmarks are accompanied by shots of Albanian brandy, of glasses of beer, and ribald tales of Gustaw’s conquests, or, as he likes to put it, times when he “bid farewell to the phenomenon of the world’s indifference.” As he flips through his little black book of half-remembered names, trying to find a woman who would be receptive to his Swedish academic, Gustaw recounts his life and its troubles and joys, digressing and charming the reader in ways reminiscent of his fellow countrymen, Witold Gombrowicz and Bruno Schulz.

Translated from the Polish by Antonia Lloyd-Jones and Jess Jensen Mitchell

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About the Author

Jerzy Pilch (1952–2020) was one of Poland's most important contemporary writers and journalists. In addition to his long-running satirical newspaper column, Pilch has published numerous novels, including The Mighty Angel, A Thousand Peaceful Cities, My First Suicide and Other Stories, and His Current Woman, all of which have been published in English translation. He was nominated for Poland's prestigious NIKE Literary Award four times, finally winning in 2001 for The Mighty Angel. 

About the Translators

Antonia Lloyd-Jones is an award-winning translator of Polish fiction, reportage, poetry, and children's books. Some of the authors she's worked with include Olga Tokarczuk, Ryszard Kapuscinski, Witold Gombrowicz, Stanislaw Lem, Wojciech Tochman, and Jozef Czapski, among many others. A longtime mentor for the UK's Emerging Translators' Mentorship Program, she is also a former co-chair of the UK Translators Association.

Jess Jensen Mitchell is a Polish to English translator, literary scholar, writer, and educator. Here translations have appeared in The Penguin Book of Polish Short Stories, Two Lines Journal, Asymptote, Przekładaniec, The New Books from Poland Catalogue, and the forthcoming anthology, The Tender Translator: Olga Tokarczuk Across Languages. A Little Black Book of Wanton Women is her first full-length translation to be published. 

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Praise for Jerzy Pilch

“Pilch’s antic sensibility confirms that he is the compatriot of Witold Gombrowicz, the Polish maestro of absurdist pranks. But readers with a taste for the fermented Irish blarney of Flann O’Brien, Samuel Beckett, and John Kennedy Toole might also savor Pilch.”
—B&N Review

"A highly original voice."—Washington Times

"With his latest, Pilch masterfully negotiates sentiment with a clear-eyed vision of his autobiographical narrator’s shortcomings and disappointments, suggesting a Dubliners set in Krakow."—Publishers Weekly (starred)

"In this book, Pilch prattles on and on remorselessly in his masterly way, bends the reader’s ear, fills the mind, grips the attention—and before you know where you are, you’ve reached the end of the book."—Lech Mergler