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      Testaments

      Ohio University Press Polish and Polish-American Studies Series

       Series Editor: John J. Bukowczyk

      Framing the Polish Home: Postwar Cultural Constructions of Hearth, Nation, and Self, edited by Bożena Shallcross

      Traitors and True Poles: Narrating a Polish-American Identity, 1880–1939, by Karen Majewski

      Auschwitz, Poland, and the Politics of Commemoration, 1945–1979, by Jonathan Huener

      The Exile Mission: The Polish Political Diaspora and Polish Americans, 1939–1956, by Anna D. Jaroszyńska-Kirchmann

      The Grasinski Girls: The Choices They Had and the Choices They Made, by Mary Patrice Erdmans

      Testaments: Two Novellas of Emigration and Exile, by Danuta Mostwin

      SERIES ADVISORY BOARD

      M. B. B. Biskupski, Central Connecticut State University

      Robert E. Blobaum, West Virginia University

      Anthony Bukoski, University of Wisconsin-Superior

      Bogdana Carpenter, University of Michigan

      Mary Patrice Erdmans, Central Connecticut State University

      Thomas S. Gladsky, Central Missouri State University (ret.)

      Padraic Kenney, University of Colorado at Boulder

      John J. Kulczycki, University of Illinois at Chicago (ret.)

      Ewa Morawska, University of Essex

      Antony Polonsky, Brandeis University

      Brian Porter, University of Michigan

      James S. Pula, Purdue University North Central

      Thaddeus C. Radzilowski, Piast Institute

      Daniel Stone, University of Winnipeg

      Adam Walaszek, Jagiellonian University

      Theodore R. Weeks, Southern Illinois University

      Testaments

       Two Novellas of Emigration and Exile

      Danuta Mostwin

       Translated from the original Polish by Marta Erdman and Nina Dyke

      OHIO UNIVERSITY PRESS

      ATHENS

      Ohio University Press, Athens, Ohio 45701

      © 2005 by Ohio University Press

       www.ohiou.edu/oupress

      Printed in the United States of America

      All rights reserved

      Ohio University Press books are printed on acid-free paper

      13 12 11 10 09 08 07 06 05 5 4 3 2 1

      Cover photo by Jacek Lech Mostwin

      Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

      Mostwin, Danuta.

      [Testament Blazeja. English]

      Testaments : two novellas of emigration and exile / Danuta Mostwin ; translated from the original Polish by Marta Erdman and Nina Dyke.— 1st ed.

      p. cm. — (Ohio University Press Polish and Polish-American studies series) Includes bibliographical references.

      ISBN 0-8214-1607-3 (cloth : alk. paper) — ISBN 0-8214-1608-1 (pbk. : alk. paper)

      1. Mostwin, Danuta—Translations into English. I. Erdman, Marta, 1921–1982. II. Dyke, Nina. III. Mostwin, Danuta. Jokasta. English. IV. Title. V. Series. PG7158.M64T4713 2005

      891.8'5373—dc22

      2005002787

      ISBN 978-0-8214-4136-7 (e-book)

       Publication of books in the Polish and Polish-American Studies Series has been made possible in part by the generous support of the following organizations:

      Polish American Historical Association, New Britain, Connecticut

      Stanislaus A. Blejwas Endowed Chair in Polish and Polish American Studies, Central Connecticut State University, New Britain, Connecticut

      The Polish Institute of Arts and Sciences of America, Inc., New York, New York

      The Piast Institute: An Institute for Polish and Polish American Affairs, Detroit, Michigan

      Contents

       Series Editor’s Preface

       Guide to Pronunciation

       INTRODUCTION Danuta Mostwin’s Puzzles of Identity

      JOANNA ROSTROPOWICZ CLARK

       The Last Will of Blaise Twardowski

      TRANSLATED BY MARTA ERDMAN

       Jocasta

      TRANSLATED BY NINA DYKE

       AFTERWORD Found in Translation

       A New Chapter in American Literature

      THOMAS J. NAPIERKOWSKI

       Appendix: The Fiction of Danuta Mostwin

      Series Editor’s Preface

      THE IMMIGRANT AGED, “the last of the first” as they have been called, experienced remarkable changes and transformations, both societal and personal, as they left or were expelled from the lands of their birth and started new lives for themselves abroad in places like America. Walls of language and privacy often stood between them and their grandchildren, barring them from telling their often poignant stories until death silenced their lips forever. But these elderly immigrants lived lives of hope and hurt, joy and sorrow, aspiration and resignation, lives worth remembering and recording. In Testaments: Two Novellas of Emigration and Exile, Danuta Mostwin recovers two such bittersweet stories of yesterday’s disappointments and tomorrow’s dreams.

      Herself a World War II–era émigré, Danuta Mostwin is both an accomplished scholar and a well-published novelist whose fiction hitherto has remained untranslated, known almost exclusively to Polish-language readers in the United States and in her native Poland. The English translations of the two novellas presented here, Jocasta and The Last Will of Blaise Twardowski, represent the first complete works made accessible to the English-speaking public. Those who venture within the covers of this slim volume will be both touched and taught. Readers never again will see the old immigrant man or the elderly émigré woman the same way they may have seen them—or just looked past them—before encountering the memorable characters in Danuta Mostwin’s two stories. Scholars, students, and general readers will find themselves changed by this book.

      Testaments: Two Novellas of Emigration and Exile is the sixth volume in the Ohio University Press Polish and Polish-American Studies Series. The series revisits the historical and contemporary experience of one of America’s largest European ethnic

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