Olga Tokarczuk's portrayal of Enlightenment Europe on the cusp of precipitous change, searching for certainty and longing for transcendence. Translated by Jennifer Croft.
Olga Tokarczuk’s unique novel interweaves reflections on travel with an exploration of human anatomy - examining life and death, motion and migration. Translated by Jennifer Croft.
In the 17th century, the Dutch anatomist Philip Verheyen dissects and draws pictures of his own amputated leg. On to the 18th century, where a North African-born slave turned Austrian courtier is stuffed and put on display after his death. Next stop is the 19th century, as we follow Chopin’s heart making the covert journey from Paris to Warsaw. Final destination is the present, with the harrowing story of a young husband whose wife and child mysteriously vanish on holiday on a Croatian island.
Olga Tokarczuk
About the Author
Olga Nawoja Tokarczuk is a Polish writer and activist, and one of the most critically acclaimed and successful authors of her generation in Poland.
Jennifer Croft
About the Translator
Jennifer Croft is an American author, critic and translator who works from Polish, Ukrainian and Argentine Spanish.Olga Tokarczuk on Flights
‘Mostly all of them are based on my experience as a traveler, but not to the end because the narrator in this book is created, designed. For instance, the first thing is that writing such a constellation novel, the novel constructed from small fragments, you have to have something which is stable. One stable position in this book. And then I realised from the beginning that it must be a very strong narrator. And of course I created this narrator from my—my own perspectives, points of view, my qualities and so on.
‘But I was sure that this narrator should be of such material that there is such a passage in the beginning of this book when I display the blood tests of this narrator. So the reader can even know such a material, organic detail of the body of the narrator. To be sure that this narrator could be real, really. Yes, many of those points of view and perspectives were mine, but also sometimes I used to skip from myself and pretend I am somebody else. And this is this kind of freedom of a writer which I love very much, and perhaps the real reason that I prefer to be a writer than psychologist, for instance.’
Read the full interview here.
Olga Tokarczuk
© Lukasz GizaWhat the judges said
‘We loved the voice of the narrative – it’s one that moves from wit and gleeful mischief to real emotional texture and has the ability to create character very quickly, with interesting digression and speculation.’
What the critics said
Kapka Kassabova, The Guardian
‘It is a novel of intuitions as much as ideas, a cacophony of voices and stories seemingly unconnected across time and space, which meander between the profound and the facetious, the mysterious and the ordinary, and whose true register remains one of glorious ambiguity … Flights has echoes of WG Sebald, Milan Kundera, Danilo Kiš and Dubravka Ugrešić, but Tokarczuk inhabits a rebellious, playful register very much her own.’
Malcolm Forbes, The Star Tribune
‘There are snippets about airports, passengers, guidebooks, foreign hotels and airsickness bags; nuggets of history and snapshots of countries […] Some sections amount to fleeting sketches or inconsequential squibs; others go on too long. Those that work provide food for thought about what makes us move and what makes us tick. Jennifer Croft deserves credit for expertly translating Tokarczuk’s singular ideas and original imagery.’
The Toronto Star
‘Flights is a dazzling novel, cerebral and emotional, thought-provoking and moving, intellectually rigorous but completely accessible […] The novel is discursive and divergent, shifting seamlessly from the narrator’s thoughts and actions into fragments and glimpses of narrative, blurring the line between the internal and external worlds, between fiction and non-fiction, between experience and invention, never giving primacy to one or the other.’
Lauren Bufferd, Bookpage
‘Tokarczuk’s world, travel should always return you a little different from how you set out. Though the connections between sections can sometimes feel choppy, Tokarczuk’s voice comes through as both confident and confiding, often knowing and surprisingly witty, in Croft’s elegant translation. Though the novel might not be for everyone, Flights is a fine introduction to a major European author, especially for those interested in contemporary or experimental fiction.’
‘It’s not a novel exactly. It’s not even a collection of intertwined short stories, although there are longer sections featuring recurring characters and well-developed narratives…This is a series of fragments tenuously linked by the idea of travel—through space and also through time—and a thoughtful, ironic voice.’
Other nominated books by Olga Tokarczuk
Olga Tokarczuk’s subversive, entertaining neo-noir is both gripping and thought-provoking, and anything but a conventional crime novel. Translated by Antonia Lloyd-Jones.
Other nominated books by Jennifer Croft
Olga Tokarczuk's portrayal of Enlightenment Europe on the cusp of precipitous change, searching for certainty and longing for transcendence. Translated by Jennifer Croft.
