Tab Article

When Dreams and Stones (Sny i kamienie) first appeared in 1995, it was immediately hailed as one of the most brilliant contributions to the literature of Central and Eastern Europe since the fall of communism, winning the prestigious Koscielski Foundation Prize in Poland.

The novel/prose poem's haunting lyricism truly breaks new literary ground. Comparisons have been made between her work and the stories of Bruno Schulz.

Tulli tells the story of the growth of a great city. Though never spelled out in the narrative, she is writing about Warsaw. The entire city of Warsaw was rebuilt after its complete destruction in World War Two; Tulli relates this history by entering the lives of the stones from which the buildings and monuments are constructed, as well as the dreams of people and objects interwoven with the city's history. Tulli reveals the inner lives of buildings, mirrors, and newspaper photographs, and she explores the design of the city, its growth and its workings. Is it a living organism or is it a highly complex piece of machinery. Tulli dismantles the city piece by piece to reveal a very different metaphysical landscape lying, literally, beneath and around it.