Official Blog of the Author

Just before we left Poland, Betsy and I bid our friends goodbye at a party at Café Biba, a quaint tearoom with an Old Warsaw atmosphere.  It was a wonderful but sad occasion.  Among those who attended were the editor-in-chief and the publisher of Swiat Ksiazki (World Books) which is my publisher in Poland, literary critics, a well-known Warsaw artist, faculty members from the University of Warsaw and friends from the Fulbright Program.  Much to our surprise we received a number of going away gifts including flowers, wine, music cd’s and splendid photo montage.  The latter was a gift from Heike Rosener and Ken Tyler.  Heike served as CEO of Swiat Ksiazki and led the promotional effort that turned my book Katyn into a bestseller twice.  We often had breakfast on Sunday mornings with Heike, Ken and their beautiful two-year-old daughter, Raffaela.  In time we came to feel like Raffaela’s surrogate grandparents.  Two of our dearest friends in Poland – Agnieszka Gorska and Piotr Ostaszewski – also were present.  Almost every Wednesday night the four of us had dinner at Agnieszka’s apartment.  Agnieszka and her daughter, Laura, and Piotr and his son, Jas, plan to visit us next summer.  A small world coincidence: Piotr’s sister, Monika, lives on the same street in Arlington, VA as our daughter, Jennifer.  They are members of the same book club.  (See photos in gallery section: “Year in Poland Highlights”)      

A wonderful, productive year in Poland just ended, all too fast, for Betsy, Honey (our Carolina Dingo) and me.  After spending a year there on a Fulbright Research Fellowship, I can truly say that Poland has become a second home.  We have developed a deep affection for its people, for the remarkable landscape and the culture of Poland.  Honey even enjoyed rolling in the snow.  (Note: the photo above was taken after a talk I gave at a middle school in Warsaw.)

I’ve been going to Poland since 1989 and feel privileged to have witnessed the country’s remarkable transformation—from an underperforming communist backwater to one of the most dynamic economies in all of Europe.  It hardly seems possible that in 2011 a Pole, Jerzy Buzek, is leading the European Union, or that Poland would play a leading role in structuring the bail-out package to Greece.  But it’s not surprising at all when one considers how hard-working the Poles are and how skillfully they’ve managed their economy since the Wall came down.

My work in Poland went very well.  I spent the year doing research on two books—one on the Solidarity trade union movement and another on a novel which I expect to finish next month.  The novel is set in 1944-45 and is based on a true story: how the Polish underground sought to seize evidence of the Katyn Massacre from the Germans in Krakow.  The mission goal involved an ambitious plan to conduct a grand tribunal to shock the West about Stalin’s murderous system and his true ambitions for Poland.  At the time Stalin was still being glorified in western media, and the Poles’ opportunity to regain their independence was slowly slipping away.

The novel will be published next year.  I will promote the book in Poland and other European countries in the fall of 2012.  I also expect to promote it extensively here in the U.S.  Once that is done I’ll start work on my next book which will tell the story of Solidarity’s foot soldiers who were at the forefront of the largest mass social movement of the Twentieth Century.  Solidarity’s primal role in bringing down the Berlin Wall is often overlooked in the West.

(See photos in gallery section: “Year in Poland Highlights”)