The Knotted Cord

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"The Knotted Cord" is the first English novel of a young Polish poet who came to England in 1940 without a word of English. By its fluent and sensitive mastery of the language alone, this novel would be an extraordinary achievement; but in the force and imaginative power of the book lies its real distinction.

It is the story of Bronek, a little Polish boy living in the village of Fabianki, and covers five intensive years of the child's search after the mystery of his own birth, a mystery so terrible that by the age of ten he has become an adult. Dedicated by his mother to Saint Anthony, the child lives for three years dressed in the habit of a little monk, which draws upon him the superstitious attentions of the village, creating for him a way apart, lonely except for his mother's love, but inextricably bound up with the folklore and religious beliefs of the village people.

His personal drama involves strange but very real characters and events, belonging to a civilisation which is almost unknown to the Western world. The book carries with it something of the mystery and magic of a country where folklore is still a creative factor int he life of the individual, and so vividly does the author re-create the characters and atmosphere of this world that the effect of his work is both compulsive and credible.