Ewa’s debut book confronts trauma and immigration
Ewa Marcinek is a Polish-born Icelander and writer. Her new book has received a lot of attention in Icelandic cultural life, and for good reason.
The first thing that struck me when reading Ísland Pólerað (which could be translated as Polish Iceland) is not that the author is a Polish-born Icelander, but how different the book is from traditional Icelandic voices, but still very close to Icelandic. reality. This is of course no coincidence. The writer, Ewa Marcinek was born in Poland but moved to Iceland in the summer of 2013; five years after the complete failure of the Icelandic banking system and the same year she was brutally attacked in her hometown. An experience she goes through in her debut.
A broken heart led to Iceland
“I lived in Wroclaw and was in a relationship for nine years,” she says. She says her life took a U-turn one day when she and her boyfriend broke up. It also broke up the comfortable pattern of her life and it was time to look for something new. At least something different.
“I came to Iceland in the summer of 2013 for work. I was running a cultural project in collaboration with Bíó Pardísi. And I loved being here. I spent three months in Iceland and although I wanted to stay, I also had to return home,” Ewa explains.
An unexpected revelation
When she returned home to Poland, she experienced terrible shocks.
“I was attacked near my home and after that I decided to move to Iceland,” said Ewa, confirming the autobiographical nature of the book.
There is not much in the description of the novel to suggest that it is autobiographical, although it is very clear that Ewa based it on her own experiences. Of course, that alone is nothing unusual. But the story itself is a poetic, yet in some ways quite ruthless journey into the life of a Polish immigrant in Iceland with a terrible trauma in his not-too-distant past.
This obviously changes this reader’s view of the story. Ewa does not shy away from her terrible experience in the book, which is described in a shockingly beautiful way. It is a poignant experience for the reader.
Ewa says that she was the only survivor of the four women who were attacked by this man and that she managed to fight and escape, unlike other women who got in his way.
The guilt
“He was arrested while I was still in Poland and I had to identify him from the crowd,” she recalls. The trial was held after she left the country to move to Iceland. She did not want to go back to the trial. The reason was guilt.
“I felt guilty because I didn’t report the attack to the police right away, so he got away,” she says. “I couldn’t bear to go back and face the victims he attacked afterwards.
Asked if it wasn’t difficult to recall these moments for her book, Ewa answers: “At first I was disconnected, but when I used this experience in my play, Polish Iceland, it really affected me.” It was very difficult to see it on stage.”
Ewa says that the attack convinced her to move to Iceland. “Iceland felt very safe for women and I feel very comfortable here,” she says.
Casual xenophobia… and not that casual xenophobia
But the novel tackles another obstacle that all immigrants in Iceland know all too well—and one Icelander would be wiser to know by reading Ewa’s book: xenophobia. Ewa approaches this subject with a masterful and warm mind, showing the reader that xenophobia is complex, but always in some ways silly, although she probably wouldn’t describe it in such harsh terms with her delicate writing style.
“I was a little surprised how Icelanders classify the Polish people. They had this idea about the Polish people living in Breiðholt [perhaps not the fanciest neighbourhood in Reykjavík]. The idea is about the lonely Polish worker who works every day and drinks a lot at night,” she explains.
It was quite obvious that Ewa did not fit into these xenophobic criteria. But she was an immigrant, worked in a restaurant, and sometimes people didn’t want her to serve them, not because she was Polish, but because she couldn’t speak Icelandic.
“It was very empowering to write this experience in the book,” she says. Asked if all these conversations she describes, for example with Icelandic fanatics, were also truths, she answers in the affirmative, these conversations were as accurate as her memory allowed them to be.
Ewa says that the focus was also on being true and reflecting the poetic reality of her life.
Finding your place
Ewa is as far from the stereotype that Icelanders have in mind when they describe the lonely working Polish man. She finally found her voice through the incredibly productive, and I might add, important cultural space in Iceland, where writers, poets and novelists meet and hone their writing skills.
This gathering is called Ós Pressan and they have been extremely efficient in creating poems and now novels by writers who are not native speakers of Iceland. One of the books that is a very good showcase for these writers is Polyphony of foreign origin, an excellent collection of poems edited by the poetess Natasha Stolyarova, although the book is not directly related to Ós Press. To top it all off, one of Iceland’s greatest poets, and an established international writer, SJÓN, has helped the group.
Delicate style
But before we get into that, I ask Ewa about the style of the book. Although it is very much focused on the story of this young Polish immigrant, it is quite unconventional when it comes to its structure. Some pages are poetry, often with a brilliant grasp of the language, Polish as well as Icelandic, but we let the readers enjoy it. At other moments the book reads like short stories, although threads are very carefully woven throughout. This is an impressive style and very delicate.
“Yes, this book would not be classified as a novel, but as poetry and short stories,” explains Ewa. She says she feels better in that style of writing instead of sitting down and writing a big novel.
“I have a background in poetry and I tried writing a novel, even a short story, but Angela Rawlings helped me a lot to find the style. She was there from the first to the last sentence,” says Ewa. If you’re a loyal reader of The Reyjavík Grapevine, you may have seen Rawlings’ name in the paper, where she was writing for us before COVID-19 hit us all. She has also written and published experimental poetry. Another incredibly influential writer among the few writers at Ós Press.
No conflict, just a new dimension
When asked if Ewa has a conflict with the Icelandic language and perhaps experiences it as a serious cultural barrier, Ewa answers: “We are not fighting the language, rather creating new pockets.” It took me a while to realize why the language is so precious to Icelanders, and I didn’t really know much about Icelandic culture, but I started to love it.”
She says it’s quite obvious that if everyone were to adopt English, instead of protecting the language, Icelandic culture would disintegrate.
“There is strength in this puritanism when it comes to Icelandic,” adds Ewa.
That said, the life of a Polish writer who has found solace in writing in English is not an easy one.
“It’s challenging,” says Ewa. Fortunately, Icelanders have noticed her brilliance and now she has received the Icelandic artist grant and is working on her next book, whatever it will be. Ewa says that it is right to come out to Forlagð [the biggest publisher in Iceland] was a victory in itself.
“Just knocking on the door at Forlagin and getting a yes from them was amazing,” says Ewa
Her book, Pólerað Ísland, will hopefully be published in English at the beginning of the summer. But also keep in mind that if you are training in Icelandic, the book might just be very accessible, even completely brilliant. For Icelanders, this is of course a must-read and a completely unique perspective when it comes to Icelandic literature.