List of Photographs
Preface
Chapter 1: Family
Chapter 2: Church
Chapter 3: Garden
Chapter 4: Pets
Chapter 5: School
Chapter 6: University - Marriage - Birth of Thomas
Chapter 7: Melchior Wańkowicz
Chapter 8: House on Studencka Street
Chapter 9: The Writer’s Illness
Chapter 10: Burial of Wańkowicz
Chapter 11: Fortune teller
Chapter 12: England Again
Chapter 13: Apartment on Kmicica Street
Chapter 14: First Book: Near Wańkowicz
Chapter 15: Ship Cruise
Chapter 16: Radziejowice - Professor Władysław Tatarkiewicz
Chapter 17: Tomek’s School
Chapter 18: Nieborów
Chapter 19: Zakopane
Chapter 20: Roman Rodziewicz
Chapter 21: CanadaChapter 22: Return to Poland
Chapter 23: Visiting the United States
Chapter 24: Norman
Notes and Thoughts
Endnotes
About the Author
Index
Aleksandra Ziółkowska-Boehm is author of many books in her native Poland and in the USA and Canada.
Using the unique literary device of forgoing the narrative
structure, Ziolkowska-Boehm instead relates memories by drifting
from topic to topic highlighting the important experiences of her
life.
*Polish American Journal*
Ziółkowska-Boehm is a prolific writer, and it is to be hoped that
she will not quit at a relatively young age. The book is a chatty
autobiography that involves Poland, the United States, and dozens
of famous and not-so-famous people with whom the author maintained
close or not-so-close relations. A good book to read by the
fireplace, with a cup of tea in hand.
*The Sarmatian Review*
Aleksandra Ziolkowska Boehm, emerges in this fascinating book as a
complex, questing Polish/Canadian/American individual. She draws
us, like threads through a tapestry, into the contrasting worlds of
both Polish and American writers, musicians, journalists and
artists and gives us unique glimpses into the minds of high
officials and behind the scene views of Polish and American drama.
Amusing, seemingly trivial, matters are interwoven with magical
moments of significant value.
Aleksandra writes with moving honesty and candor about herself. She
gives the reader a total sense of being right there with her—as she
movingly recalls her childhood and formative years in Poland. As a
student her destiny is interwoven with the great Polish writer
Melchior Wańkowicz and his enlightened circle. We watch her growing
and changing as she bonds with her son and beloved animals, as she
travels around the planet, falls in love, marries an adventurous
American and sympathetically evaluates her split worlds. Romantic,
loving, strong, brilliant and intently responsive—this is
Aleksandra, whose wise perceptions, struggles, failures and
achievements illuminate and inspire us through this powerful and
beautifully written book.
*Audrey Ronning Topping, American Publisher's 2013 Prose Award
winner author*
Through Aleksandra Ziolkowska-Boehm’s award-winning writings about
Poles, Americans and Canadians and her personal visits, she has
become an excellent ambassador for all three countries. The
author's writings have motivated many Canadian citizens to
rediscover their Polish roots.
*Jesse Flis, member of Canadian Parliament for fourteen years*
Ziolkowska’s storytelling talents are on full display. This is more
than an autobiography. Through the storyteller’s art, her talent
becomes a lens for larger events, as well as her own life: from
Warsaw to the Crazy Horse memorial that members of her family are
carving in South Dakota, from Zbigniew Brzeziñski to Pope John Paul
II.
*Bruce E. Johansen, Jacob J. Isaacson University Research
Professor, communication and Native American studies, University of
Nebraska at Omaha*
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