From The Archives: Tomasz Jedrowski on his queer coming-of-age love story set in communist Poland
4/28/202639 min
From the archives this month, we bring you Dua’s conversation with Polish-German author Tomasz Jedrowski, author of Swimming In The Dark. Set in 1980, it’s a story of first love between Ludwig and Janus, told against the backdrop of communist Poland as the regime starts to crumble. This queer coming of age story explores a time and place where love, class and politics do not exist in isolation. The communist party looms large in this story, impacting both professional and personal relationships. Dua and Tomasz reflect on what might have been if their parents had not made the choices they did. Tomasz asks what life would have been like for a young gay man in Warsaw in his parents’ generation and Dua imagines growing up in Kosovo under the shadow of war. It’s an intimate and beautiful conversation that illuminates a turbulent period of recent history that many people today know little about. Join the club: 📩 Email us your thoughts – books@service95.com 📲 Follow @service95bookclub on Instagram for more author interviews 📚 Subscribe to the Service95 Book Club newsletter – and be the first to discover Dua’s next pick – at service95.com And don’t forget to hit ‘subscribe’ wherever you get your podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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First 90 secondsDua Lipa· Host0:00
[gentle music] Welcome to the Service95 Book Club with me, Dua Lipa. From the archive is Tomasz Jedrowski, who I spoke to in May 2024 about his stunning novel, Swimming in the Dark. We explore forbidden love, personal and political courage, and how storytelling can reclaim silenced histories. My chat with Tomasz coming up. [page turning] Hi, Tomasz. How are you doing?
Tomasz Jedrowski· Guest0:27
Hello. I'm good. How are you?
Dua Lipa· Host0:30
Well, I'm delighted to speak to you. Thank you so, uh, much for joining us at the Service95 Book Club. I, um, I read Swimming in the Dark in 2020 when it just came out, and it was a book that was, uh, recommended to me, actually, by a friend. And I read it immediately, and I was so swept away by how, um, gentle and poetic the novel was. Um, while at the same time, you know, it has this huge kind of personal and political upheaval throughout. Um, and it really is, like, the center of the story. And I know this is your debut novel. Obviously, at the time that I read it, I had just discovered you and I was very excited at the fact that, [laughs] um, I just learned about this new author and I was like, "Okay, I'm gonna tell all my friends [laughs] to read this book." Um,