The article discusses the relation between the factography and the fiction in literary reportage. The text proposes the term of quasi-factual narrative, which describes a rhetorical figure typical for the documentary genres amplifying their descriptivity. Second category: factual narrative is an intentional distortion that is unauthorised in the reportage genre. The theoretical proposal referring back to the tradition of literary studies that dates back to the interwar period was discussed using the example of oeuvre of old and contemporary authors such as Wanda Melder, Melchior Wańkowicz, Hanna Krall, Anna Kaszuba-Dębska, Wojciech Jagielski and Anna Fryczkowska – the author of factual narrative. 

The article discusses three doctoral theses (of Anna Jungstrand, Anita Pluwak and Cecilia Aare) defended at Swedish universities that focused on the genre of reportage and included among other things the analyses of texts by Polish authors – Hanna Krall, Ryszard Kapuściński, Wojciech Tochman and Jacek Hugo-Bader. The article describes the theoretical starting points of these research works and the methods of identifying the characteristic features of the Polish authors’ writing style: the creation of “credibility” of the literary reportage from the perspective of multilevel narrative ( Jungstrand), the “meeting situation” between readers and characters of the reportage (Aare) and the interplay of temporal perspective with the “technique of pressure” if a reportage text is to be read from the perspective of Peter Brooks’ theory of melodrama (Pluwak). Conclusions of the researchers were juxtaposed with the voices of critics (Peter England, Joan Tiberg), commented upon was also the Maciej Zaremba’s thesis about the role of communist censorship in formation of writing style of Polish reporters that appeared in the preface to the anthology of Swedish translations of Polish reportages (2006) that was also repeated by Jungstrand and Aare.

The article reflects on the chosen aspects of the Czech reception of the so called Polish school of reportage. Using a few specific examples, it analyses which Polish reportage texts appear in Czech translation, how are they received and which picture of Polish reportage emerges from such reflection. For analysis purposes chosen were first and foremost these texts, which in some way present the genre characteristics of the Polish reportage or the cultural differences in its reception by Polish and Czech readers.

The aim of the article is the search for the sources of fascination with Kapuściński’s oeuvre in the Spanish academic milieu. In the essay discussed were the examples of actions taken by the researchers in Spain and in Poland whose idea was to propagate the thoughts of the author of The Shadow of Sun. The article shows that Kapuściński’s reflections on the topic of the journalist and corespondent profession are still relevant and many Spanish journalists invoke them in their work in a direct or indirect manner.

The article consists of three parts. First two parts have a historic-literary character as they discuss the following: how the writings of Kapuściński reached Spain and Latin America; how they were received there; when and due to which factors the reporter achieved success and his books started to gain popularity. The third part is a theoretical attempt at conceptualising the issue. Using the enquiries in libraries as well as archives, the conducted interviews and the reception theory of Hans Robert Jauss as well as the concept of the “horizon of expectations”, the author tries to explain why the writings of Kapuściński made a name for themselves in these particular regions of the world.

As a journalistic genre, reportage is determined by the context in which it is produced. It transports the reader to a specific time and place, but, unlike the news, it does not depend on current events. Therefore, a reporter is not constrained by brevity and, like any other author, aims to develop their own style. This was the case of Ryszard Kapuściński, who was the Polish Press Agency’s only correspondent in Latin America from 1967 to 1972. After this experience, Kapuściński returned several times to the continent from 2001 to 2005 and gave lectures for the Fundacion Nuevo Periodismo Iberomericano, founded by Gabriel Garcia Marquez. His reportages about the continent are considered highly political (in fact Artur Domosławski describes him as a naive “true believer” in communism during his stay as a correspondent). This article, however, views the significance of his time on the new continent from a different perspective. Was the most important Latin American influence on Kapuściński actually the style and genre that he developed as he explored a new kind of reportage: ‘‘magical journalism”? 

The article is an attempt at analysing the foreign reception of Jacek Hugo-Badera’s reportage books on the former USRR. Looking at the method of publishing and promoting the translations meant for the American market, the author points out the embedding of these texts in the global genology (the category of survival non-fiction). The testimonies of a professional and non-professional reception of White Fever in Ukraine (where the Polish school of reportage is an important point of reference) become in themselves a pretext to sketch out the post-colonial context. The author deems the lack of Russian translations of Hugo-Bader’s books to be important. From a wider perspective, the proposed case study indicates the different ways of the Polish reportages being relevant abroad.

Maciej Zaremba-Bielawski is one the leading Swedish publicists and writers of Polish origin, a reporter of the well-known Stockholm newspaper Dagens Nyheter, a prizewinner of prestigious Scandinavian journalist awards and peace prizes. He is a well-read and well-acknowledged author in Poland as well; all of his books are accessible to the Polish readership. The article investigates the influence of features characteristic for the Polish school of reportage on the oeuvre of the author of De rena och de andra: om tvangssteriliseringar, rashygien och arvsynd (On Eugenic Sterilisations in Sweden and elsewhere), in particular in connection with his latest book titled Huset med de tva tornen (A House with Two Turrets). Firstly, the article attempts to identify its genre traits, leaning towards the claim that it is a literary reportage woven around an autobiographic tale. Secondly, the article tries to highlight these traits of Huset med de tva tornen which confirm the thesis about the literary character of reportage and the use of patterns developed by the Polish authors of reportage books. The literary character of the discussed book is noticeable in the humanist approach of the author, understood as the reflection not only on the condition of humankind and world, but also on his own attitude towards the topic, as well as posing deliberate questions about the place and the role of values in the world. It is seen in the deliberation contained in Huset med de tva tornen, which is a multidimensional reflection on Polish history, fate of the Polish Jews, anti-Semitism as well as first and foremost memory.

The following article deals with the literary biographical reportage Papusza and the author’s impression of the Gypsy poetess. Kuźniak explores Papusza’s life beyond the myth rooted in popular culture. And in her search for the real Papusza she finds an absolutely tragic figure. Naturally, the author applies a highly critical feminist gaze that detects the “sins” for which the poetess will have to “pay”, and in general these are related to the fact that she is a woman. But there is no discourse here: the author makes the facts speak for themselves. The plot is constructed in such a way that the moral commentary is redundant. Kuźniak’s work is a dry, minimalist book, built upon bare factsand scraps of life, with no apparent literary work: its stylisation is expressed through linguistic coarseness, imitating Papusza’s austere way of life (a life where the poetry is sought after), her primitive writing and even her naive poetry. As we shall see, three great condemnations loom over Papusza’s life: femininity, gypsyness and otherness. But Kuźniak goes beyond the specific biographical account, which in turn serves as a micro-historical vector through which we gain access to a vision of the history of Polish Gypsies in the twentieth century. Thanks to that Papusza thus becomes a critical essay dealing with the issues of discrimination, gender and otherness.

The article presents the two-volume publication Literature and Religion. Challenges of the Secular Age (Kraków 2020) as an innovative analysis of the Polish literature after 1945, in which new concepts of researching religiousness and secularity – mostly the works of Charles Taylor – were used. It was highlighted that the literature reading presented in the monograph modifies the image of Polish culture, whose characteristic feature is identified as religiousness. Referring back to important discussions and texts on the topic of secularisation, an extended understanding of religiousness taken out of the confession formula was applied. Such approach enables an interesting reading of works of such authors as Witold Gombrowicz, Miron Białoszewski, Stanisław Lem and Marian Pankowski, which enriches the range of Polish attitudes towards faith. The author of the article notes the work’s division into two volumes: the first volume presents the methodologies and the theoretical approaches to literature and religion; the second volume is dedicated to the analysis of the oeuvres of the specific writers. Thanks to it, the reader receives a compendium on the topic signalised in the title, which provides the overview of theories and methodological tools as well as examples of new readings of Polish literary works.

The article is a commentary on Radosław Kuliniak’s and Mariusz Pandura’s biography of Roman Witold Ingarden “Jestem filozofem świata” (Κόσμου φιλόσοφός εἰμι). Roman Witold Ingarden (1893–1970). Having edited and published together a number of archival materials related to the history of Polish pre- and post-war philosophy as well, the authors have brought out a book on life and philosophy that is strongly corroborated by the archival materials. They have employed the positivist model of biography that implies particular (biological, historical) determinisms along with traditionally linear and sequential view of the past, the model based on substantial concept of the subject that can be isolated from its discursive or institutional networks of relations. In the article I discuss whether the positivist model of biographical writing along with the style and rhetoric employed in the book serve to achieve the goals set by the authors. Could the phenomenologist’s biography be based on different conceptual and genological solutions? Can they be found among the notions and conceptions extracted from Ingarden’s writings?