The Ice Saints

by Frank Tuohy, Neal Ascherson (Introduction)

A young English woman arrives in the Polish People's Republic to visit her older sister, who married a Polish soldier after the war, disappearing into a life behind the Iron Curtain. This award-winning novel of the harsh cruelties and deprivations of life in Communist Poland is told with truth, wit and understanding.

Genres: Poland

237 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 1964

Reviews

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is really lovely, and competent and careful with its observations, rather in the style of Olivia Manning though more sensitive and very moving, at least for those of us foreigners who caught the end of that period of Poland - it's set in 1960 and there are loud echoes in what I knew there in the 1990s. And it will still echo I think, in the new Poland, though a little less clearly. Why isn't it better known?

If Poland ever got her hooks into you, read this.

[Rebecca · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably 3.5 stars for me. Feels very much a book of its time but gives an interesting insight in to life in communist Poland in the 1960s from a foreign visitor’s perspective. Evokes well the grey, bleak, stultifying atmsosphere that was still present (just!) when I first visited Eastern Europe not long after after the fall of communism thirty years later. At points some of the characters felt like stereotypes but as the story progressed they seemed to gain dimensions and I found last thirty or so pages to be very affecting.

[Susie Brown · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found a beautiful new copy of this book in a charity shop by Apollo. Definitely picked it up for its cover but was intrigued by the blurb. Really enjoyed the book, I love a bit of historical insight. No idea why it’s such an obscure book that no one seems to have read!