My Name is Stramer
Published on 28. August 2025
416 pages
978-1-80533-214-5 (ISBN)
Description
A richly evocative and moving portrait of an ordinary Polish Jewish family in the years preceding the Second World War
Though he returned from America penniless, Nathan Stramer still daydreams of a better life. Raising six children with his wife Rywka in a poor area of Tarnów, he chases hare-brained schemes to make money while she fantasises about a trip to the seaside.
Meanwhile, their children are taking steps out into a changing world. Rudek, the eldest, sets his passions aside for a practical job; Rena falls in love with a married man, and Hesio and Salek get ever more involved with Communism.
While Nathan and Rywka try to hold the centre of their raucous family life, national conflicts begin to escalate, and something sinister creeps into the Stramers' world that they don't yet understand.
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Persons
Mikolaj Lozinski is a Polish novelist, screenwriter and photographer. He has received several awards for his writing, including the Polityka Passport and the Koscielski Foundation Award. My Name is Stramer, his third novel, was shortlisted for the prestigious Nike Literary Award and has been translated into 16 languages. Lozinski lives in Warsaw.Antonia Lloyd-Jones has translated works by many of Poland's leading contemporary novelists, including Nobel Prize-winner Olga Tokarczuk and Artur Domoslawski. In 2018 she was honored with Poland's Transatlantyk Award for the most outstanding promoter of Polish literature abroad.
