Choucas

Zofia Nalkowska

"The novel in Europe in the early 20th century took a decidedly inward turn, and Choucas (1927) is an intriguing example of the modernist psychological tradition. Its author, Zofia Nalkowska (1884-1954), was a celebrated Polish novelist and playwright. She rose to prominence in interwar Poland and was one of a group of early feminist writers that included Pola Gojawiczynska, Maria Dabrowska, and Maria Kuncewiczowa. Choucas is set in the Swiss Alps in the mid-1920s in a sanatoria village near Lake Geneva. The book has an international focus, and the narrator, a polish woman, profiles a motley collection of visitors to the village and patients at the sanatorium and their interactions with each other. Among these she encounters Armenian survivors of the 1915-16 genocide who were given refuge in Switzerland. The characters are all from different countries and each represents a distinct...