Swimming in the Dark
by Tomasz Jedrowski

Sensual, gripping, powerful, and heartbreaking, this beautifully written novel of two young gay men in love in Soviet Poland is one of the best, most insightful and moving books I have read in a very long time. Jedrowski recreates what it was like to be gay and to live in a repressive Polish society in the 1980s. For a first novel, this is a stunning debut.