Celebrated Polish-American poet John Guzlowski writes about Polish reactions to Olga Tokarczuk's Nobel Prize. His full article can be accessed at the Dziennik Zwiazkowy website, here. The article appears in both Polish and English.
An excerpt from John's piece is below.
...Almost immediately after discovering Tokarczuk had won the Nobel Prize, I went online to see what social media was making of this great honor given to her. What I found was not what I expected to find.
On one of the popular Facebook pages devoted to Poland, people were calling her a “bitch,” a “cunt,” a “traitor,” and an “idiot.” They were saying she wasn’t even Polish, that in fact she was an anti-Polish Ukrainian. They were also condemning her for being anti-Catholic, pro-Semitic, pro-LGBTQ, a man-slamming feminist, and a Nazi – interestingly — all at the same time. In fact, one of the frequent images of Tokarczuk I saw at this social media site and other social media sites was of her standing with a group of people at a modern art exhibit in front of what looks like a painting of a cross being transformed into a swastika.
For me, one of the interesting things about this onslaught of attacks on Olga Tokarczuk is that no one, I must repeat, NO ONE, has said a single word about what she has written. The accusations and attacks are there, but there is nothing in all of the social media sites I’ve gone to that indicates that anyone making these accusations has read even one of her novels or other writings. One commentator in fact says he refuses to read anything by Tokarczuk because of what other people are saying about her on social media..."
I have read a number of opinions of Polish readers - there are enthusiasts and people who describe Tokarczuk's books as terribly boring, a number of readers were able to read half of her book, this includes Minister of Culture Professor Glinski. Spoor, film directed by Agnieszka Holland, is probably more popular than all books by Tokarczuk.
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