Alissa Valles, Irena Grudzińska Gross, Eric Karpeles, and Anka Muhlstein join us for a discussion of Józef Czapski's book of essays "Memories of Starobielsk," in celebration of its publication from NYRB Classics. This virtual event, presented as part of our ongoing series with our friends at New York Review Books, took place on Zoom. To purchase a copy of the book (and support Community Bookstore): [ Ссылка ]

About the book:

Interned with thousands of Polish officers in the Soviet prisoner-of-war camp at Starobielsk in September 1939, Józef Czapski was one of a very small number to survive the massacre in the forest of Katyń in April 1940. "Memories of Starobielsk" portrays these doomed men, some with the detail of a finished portrait, others in vivid sketches that mingle intimacy with respect, as Czapski describes their struggle to remain human under hopeless circumstances. Essays on art, history, and literature complement the memoir, showing Czapski’s lifelong engagement with Russian culture. The short pieces on painting that he wrote while on a train traveling from Moscow to the Second Polish Army’s strategic base in Central Asia stand among his most lyrical and insightful reflections on art.

About our guests:

Alissa Valles is the author of three books of poetry and many translations, of which "Our Life Grows: Poems of Ryszard Krynicki" (NYRB) was awarded the Scaglione Award of the Modern Language Association. She is a lecturer in the Holocaust, Genocide and Human Rights Studies program of the Elie Wiesel Center at Boston University.

Irena Grudzińska Gross’s books include "Czesław Miłosz and Joseph Brodsky: Fellowship of Poets" and "The Scar of Revolution: Tocqueville, Custine, and the Romantic Imagination." She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Eric Karpeles is a painter, writer, and translator. He is the author of "Almost Nothing: The 20th Century Art and Life of Józef Czapski," produced an artist’s monograph, "Józef Czapski: An Apprenticeship of Looking," and translated Czapski's "Lost Time: Lectures on Proust in a Prison Camp." His comprehensive guide, "Paintings in Proust," considers the intersection of literary and visual aesthetics in the work of the great French novelist.

Anka Muhlstein has published eleven books of biographies and essays. She has been awarded the Goncourt prize of Biography and has twice received the History Prize of the French Academy. Her latest work - a biography of Pissarro - will be published in France in the fall and in 2023 in the United States.

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