This classic Polish novel, available in English for the first time, explores important themes of public health, economic inequality, and alienation in the age of industrialization
Now that Tomasz Judym, a Jew from a slum in Warsaw, has
become a doctor he finds that his driving motivation to treat disadvantaged
people like those he grew up with is at odds with the expectations of his
peers. His job is made constantly more difficult by the unhealthy working and living
conditions of the working class in turn of the century Warsaw. As he battles
alone to do the kind of work that boards of health and other agencies do today, Dr. Judym wrestles inwardly with his feelings of inferiority and revulsion caused
by his difficult childhood. Meanwhile, his mission takes him out of the city
and into the countryside, bringing him into conflict with his other desires,
and the love that he feels for a sympathetic woman whose background differs
fundamentally from his own.
The Homeless combines concrete detail about social
issues--the urgent need for public hygiene and access to medical treatment, the
effects of industrialization on health and the landscape, and the disinterest
that people in power have in the disadvantaged--with beautiful, artistic
passages of prose that sensitively probe the main characters' inner lives. The
title comes not from the obvious reference to the impoverished people Dr. Judym
concerns himself with, but from status of the protagonist, the woman he loves,
a mysterious engineer friend of his, his brother, and
seemingly so many others who find themselves rootless--emotionally and
physically alienated by class divides and the social upheaval of
industrialization. The Homeless is a portrait of the time and place it was
written--Poland on the precipice of the twentieth century--that speaks to our
current time and place.
Beautifully translated by Stephanie Kraft, this new edition includes an Introduction by Jennifer Croft and Boris Dralyuk.
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