Flights by Olga Tokarczuk

Like insatiable wanderlust you'll feel lost when its over

Olga Tokarczuk's Man Booker International 2018 winning novel Flights could be the most original novel you read this year. Part collection of short stories and part essay on the theme of travel psychology, Tokarczuk takes us on a life affirming examination of the role of time and place.

Tokarczuk is one of Poland's most renowned writers having already scooped the country's most highly prized accolade for Flights when first published in 2009. Translation duties into English fall to the capable hands of Jennifer Croft who elegantly manages to make sense of Tokarczuk's boundless prose.  

In Flights Tokarczuk takes us on a multi-narrative journey from a story concerning Chopin's preserved heart traveling from Paris to Warsaw, to a tourist who goes missing on a Croatian island via a former whaler who high-jacks his own ferry. Tales are disjointed and interspersed with short essays concerning the minutiae of travel yet the book as a whole hangs together in addictive symphony.

For the seasoned traveler, the committed nomad or the reluctant holiday maker Flights offers a world of discourse in which to literally immerse yourself. In the tradition of the essay novel there are parts that will resonate greater than others but, like like insatiable wander lust, you'll feel lost when its over.

Flights by Olga Tokarczuk published by Fitzcarraldo Editions, 432 pages

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