These, in my opinion, didn’t fit into the rhythm, often seemed out of place or awkward. there are some “stories” that are as short as 4-5 sentences. There is a red line that ties the individual stories together, which consists of two parallels: movement, motion & travels, on the contrary to stillness & getting stuck in one place.

There is huge potential to this book though & other readers who are not as against short stories as I am might find something enjoyable within it.

Some hints about it could be read out through the reviews, I nevertheless decided to give the book a try & had to learn it the hard way. I’ve realised that I’m not a fan of these at all, so I would’ve preferred to be warned about it. What I do have to say is that the book should be labelled as a collection of short stories. Personally, getting through this book was a pain… I didn’t feel motivated to continue reading it, struggled through it for almost a month, my interest wasn’t sparked by it, it just wasn’t my thing. Ambitious and complex.Having picked up the book for an upcoming book club but most of all having been curious about it because of Olga Tokarczuk having received the Nobel Prize for Literature, I’ve got to say that I was underwhelmed to say the least. “A beautifully fragmented look at man’s longing for permanence…. Svetlana Alexievich, Nobel Prize-winning author of Secondhand Time Enchanting, unsettling, and wholly original, Flights is a master storyteller’s answer.Ī visionary work of fiction by “A writer on the level of W. Where are you from? Where are you coming in from? Where are you going? we call to the traveler. Through these brilliantly imagined characters and stories, interwoven with haunting, playful, and revelatory meditations, Flights explores what it means to be a traveler, a wanderer, a body in motion not only through space but through time.

A woman must return to her native Poland in order to poison her terminally ill high school sweetheart, and a young man slowly descends into madness when his wife and child mysteriously vanish during a vacation and just as suddenly reappear. Chopin’s heart is carried back to Warsaw in secret by his adoring sister.

NATIONAL BOOK AWARD FINALIST FOR TRANSLATED LITERATUREįrom the incomparably original Polish writer Olga Tokarczuk, Flights interweaves reflections on travel with an in-depth exploration of the human body, broaching life, death, motion, and migration. WINNER OF THE MAN BOOKER INTERNATIONAL PRIZE

Flights olga tokarczuk nobel prize