Nocturnal Apparitions

A gorgeous collection from cult classic Polish author Bruno Schulz: 15 of the most captivatingly strange and beautiful short stories ever written.

"An accessible, exhilarating introduction to Schulz's oeuvre." --Washington Post

Beloved by famous authors from Salman Rushdie to Jonathan Safran Foer, Bruno Schulz remains one of the great transformers of the ordinary into the fantastical. The stories in this collection are rich, tangled, and suffused with mystery and wonder. In the narrowing, winding city streets, strange figures roam. Great flocks of birds soar over rooftops, obscuring the sun. Cockroaches appear through cracks and scuttle across floorboards. Individuals careen from university buildings to dimly lit parlor rooms, through strange shops and endless storms.

These 15 stories provide an exciting, accessible introduction to Schulz's work, from mesmerizing classics like "August" and "The Age of Genius," to the hidden gem "Undula," a recently discovered story believed to be Schulz's first-ever published work. Set in a phantasmagoric version of the Eastern European city where the author was born and died, they showcase Schulz's darkly modern sensibility, crowded with moments of stunning beauty. What emerges is a nightmarish reality where the boundaries of time and space are compromised and made strange.

A cult classic author whose career was tragically cut short by his murder during World War II, the world of Schulz's imagination - overpowering and utterly unique - is ripe for rediscovery.

Bruno Schulz was a Polish Jewish writer and artist who has influenced writers including Salman Rushdie, Roberto Bolaño, David Grossman and Cynthia Ozick. He was born and lived most of his life in the town of Drohobych, once part of the Austro-Hungarian Empire, then Poland, and now part of Ukraine. He published two collections of short stories - Cinnamon Shops and The Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass - during his lifetime. Schulz was shot and killed by a German SS officer in Drohobych in 1942. His unfinished novel, The Messiah, was lost in the Holocaust.

Stanley Bill is originally from Australia. He is Professor of Polish Studies at Cambridge University, and has translated the work of Czeslaw Milosz as well as the stories of Bruno Schulz.