LVIV, Ukraine – One day Lviv police officer Edward Popielski may become as popular in Ukraine as the Wroclaw-based detective Eberhard Mock is in Poland.
Both are the literary creations of Marek Krajewski, an award-winning and best-selling Polish writer whose gritty crime novels have taken his homeland and Europe by storm.
Often dark and sordid, Krajewski’s novels focus on a period between the two World Wars when detectives regularly bedded prostitutes, where opium was abundant, and where old-world manners and social hierarchy ruled.
“Yes, these are dark noire detectives,” said Krajewski, 44, laughing heartily. “I look jolly, but inside I am very noire.”
Krajewski has drawn a considerable following in Poland and in Europe for his pentalogy that features detective Mock. Borderline alcoholic but erudite, Mock navigates Wroclaw’s criminal underworld at a time when the city was called Breslau under German rule. “The Minotaur’s Head,” the first in the Ukrainian-based series, takes Mock to Lviv, a western Ukrainian town with rich in architecture and was long ruled by Poland, to investigate a murder of a young girl. There he meets Lviv policeman Popielski.
Krajewski’s books have been translated into 18 languages. Tourists in Wroclaw regularly take city tours dedicated to Mock’s hangouts as they appear in novels. And on a recent promotional visit to London, the writer arrived to find a huge banner announcing his appearance at the famous British bookseller Waterstone’s.
Not bad for a Polish crime writer who was a one-time classics professor.
Krajewski began developing the theme for his novels while still a lecturer of Latin at the University of Wroclaw.
Marek Krajewski talks with readers of his novels in Wroc
“This literary genre was a hobby,” he said. “After my lessons and lectures at the university, I returned home and read… I began thinking about this [a novel] in 1992 and over five years I didn’t have the time to write, so the only thing I did is I developed the subject, the psychological portrait of the hero.”
The budding author eventually put pen to paper and merged his two loves – the detective novel and the city of Wroclaw – into a book. That book, “Death in Breslau,” was published in 1999 to rave reviews. Since then, over half a million copies of his books have been published in Poland alone, allowing him to start writing full-time in 2007.
Literary enthusiasts are now predicting Lviv-based crime novels may be in store for the same popularity. An honored guest at September’s publisher’s forum, the writer said he was drawn to Lviv because of family roots. His mother was born outside Lviv, while his grandfather spent 20 years working in the city as a waiter. As a youngster in Poland, Krajewski would peruse his uncle’s library, which had a vast collection of books related to Lviv.
“He told me about this charming city,” said Krajewski, who first visited Lviv in 2007 when he attended that year’s book forum. “Lviv was a city of parks, a green city where Poles, Jews, Ukrainians and Armenians lived peacefully. This city had an ideal picture.” Since then, he has returned to the city several times for research trips.
Krajewski is methodical in his research and writing, often punctilious in his accuracy to time and place. For background, he reads period newspapers and books, and consults with experts when needed. He begins his day at 5 a.m., writes for five hours, then reads the newspaper, runs or takes his beloved dog for a walk. His afternoons are spent reading the classics; he recently finished Moby Dick.
In many ways, Krajewski is an archetypal Renaissance man – something he readily admits to. He wrote his first two books by hand and only then switched to a computer. He still refuses to use email. His wife, who is his manager, handles his correspondence. “I am old-fashioned. I am a Latinist and live in an antiquated world,” he said.
Krajewski admits, however, that he is about to take the plunge into the electronic age. He is preparing to buy his first electronic reader, in part because his home already houses a library of 3,000 hardcopy books.
Plots, characters and style
Although World War II was a “terrible tragedy” for his homeland, literarily Krajewski says he is interested more in the Poland that existed before the war – “the multicultural country where Jews, Ukrainians and other nationalities lived.”
Undoubtedly, the Popielski series will give readers a feeling of Lviv on the eve of World War II, said founder of the publishing house Urbino, Anatoliy Ivchenko, which produced Krajewski’s latest books, “Erynie” and “The Phantoms of Breslau,” in Ukrainian.
“His language isn’t easy,” Ivchenko said, adding that Krajewski often uses idioms – the “Lvivsky balak,” popular before the war.
Along with paying homage to his roots, Krajewski wants to use the Lviv-based series to “gracefully” part with Polish Mock. A special assignments policeman who on the surface appears quite different from his Breslau counterpart, Popielski will help him with that.
Unlike Mock, Popielski is attentive to his appearance, right down to his choice of cravat. He is, however, no less determined in his search for the truth. And Lviv’s pre-war underworld is no less intriguing.
Three books of the Popielski series will be set in Lviv, with others taking place in Wroclaw after the war, noted Kajewski. “Popielski will move from Lviv to Wroclaw as many Poles did,” he revealed.
There, Popielski will open up a private detective agency and readers will be able follow his next exploits.
Kyiv Post staff writer Natalia A. Feduschak can be reached at [email protected].
