Love at First Sight
by Wislawa Szymborska; Illustrated by Beatrice Gasca Queirazza
HC | 34 pages | 8-1/4 x 11-3/4
On Publisher’s Website
This book is recommended by the Polish Cultural Institute New York.
A poem by the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature that will challenge assumptions about falling in love. Illustrated for readers of all ages.
They’re both convinced / that a sudden passion joined them.
Such certainty is beautiful, / but uncertainty is more beautiful still.
Love at First Sight, a poem by the 1996 Polish winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, concerns itself with love and chance and destiny. Illustrated by Italian artist Beatrice Gasca Queirazza, Szymborska’s poem comes to life in entirely new ways for readers and lovers everywhere in this oversized book perfect for gift giving.
Szymborska tells of two young lovers bound together in an instant—or were they? As the poem unfolds, the reader’s assumptions—like those of the lovers themselves—about certainty and destiny are utterly upended, revealing the paradox and mystery of fate. Here is randomness, tricks of memory, and chance, where noticing the smallest details of our intertwined lives is more essential than asking, Are we meant for each other? “Every beginning / is only a sequel, after all…”
“This beautiful, indelible poem by Szymborska has trademark attention to detail—a falling leaf, a doorknob—and, too, her ever-present sense of mystery: why do our lives unfold as they do? How much does chance play in our most deeply felt decisions, and even in our dreams? Beatrice Gasca Queirazza’s drawings, at once circumspect and charming, are a graceful companion to the text. A pleasure.”
—Cynthia Zarin, author of Two Cities and Orbit: Poems
WISŁAWA SZYMBORSKA (1923-2012) was a Polish poet who received international recognition when she won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996. Collections of her poems that have been translated into English include People on a Bridge (1990), View with a Grain of Sand: Selected Poems (1995), Miracle Fair(2001), Monologue of a Dog (2005), and Map: Collected and Final Poems (2015) in which the poem “Love at First Sight” first appeared. Szymborska lived most of her life in Krakow; she studied Polish literature and society at Jagiellonian University and worked as an editor and columnist. A selection of her reviews was published in English under the title Nonrequired Reading: Prose Pieces (2002). She received the Polish PEN Club prize, the Goethe Prize, and the Herder Prize.
BEATRICE GASCA QUEIRAZZA is an Italian illustrator and graphic designer based in Torino, Italy. She studied illustration and animation at Institute European Design in Milan and studied painting and screenprinting at Saint Martin’s School in London. Her favorite materials are pencil, ink, collage and digital color.
CLARE CAVANAUGH received an NBCC award for criticism and a PEN Translation prize for her work, with Polish poet and translator STANISLAW BARANCZAK (1946-2014), on Szymborska’s poetry.
