„Death is the easiest solution”. Of exile experiences in the prose by Danuta Irena Bieńkowska

Abstract

The aim of this article is to discuss two short novels selected from a few writings by Danuta Irena Bieńkowska collected in the volume Między brzegami (London 1978) published after her death. The writer was born in Toruń (1927). After the Second World War she lived in England, and, since 1955, in Canada. The novels contain a variety of quasi-diary (Droga do Rosji: fragmenty z dziennika) and short-prose (Północ i południe: szkice z Rosji) references to her experiences gained during the period of deportation to the labor camps in the Komi Republic and Uzbekistan. The article provides an interpretation of the mentioned works as a personal document in the context of gulag literature (by, among others, Beata Obertyńska, Barbara Skarga, Gustaw Herling-Grudziński, Anatol Krakowiecki, Jerzy Krzysztoń) and thus it presents the writer’s contribution to the literature undertaking the task of „naming the unnamable”.