{"product_id":"9781934824276","title":"A Thousand Peaceful Cities","description":"\u003cp\u003e\"If laughter actually is the best medicine, fortunate readers of this wonderful novel will surely enjoy perfect health for the rest of their days.\"—\u003ci\u003eKirkus Reviews\u003c\/i\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eA comic gem, Jerzy Pilch's \u003ci\u003eA Thousand Peaceful Cities\u003c\/i\u003e takes place in 1963, in the latter days of the Polish post-Stalinist \"thaw.\" The narrator, Jerzyk (\"little Jerzy\"), is a teenager who is keenly interested in his father, a retired postal administrator, and his father's closest friend, Mr. Traba, a failed Lutheran clergyman, alcoholic, and would-be Polish insurrectionist. One drunken afternoon, Mr. Traba and the narrator's father decide to take charge of their lives and do one final good turn for humanity: travel to distant Warsaw and assassinate the de facto Polish head of state, First Secretary of the Polish United Workers' Party, Wladyslaw Gomulka—assassinating Mao Tse-tung, after all, would be impractical. And they decide to involve Jerzyk in their scheme...\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eJerzy Pilch\u003c\/b\u003e is one of Poland's most important contemporary writers and journalists. In addition to his long-running satirical newspaper column, Pilch has published several novels, and has been nominated for Poland's prestigious NIKE Literary Award four times; he finally won the Award in 2001 for \u003ci\u003eThe Mighty Angel\u003c\/i\u003e. His novels have been translated into numerous languages.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003cb\u003eDavid Frick\u003c\/b\u003e is a professor in the Department of Slavic Languages and Literatures at the University of California, Berkeley.\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e","brand":"Open Letter","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":47039632179440,"sku":"9781934824276","price":14.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0737\/7593\/9824\/files\/9781934824276_p0.jpg?v=1763655478","url":"https:\/\/shop-qa.barnesandnoble.com\/products\/9781934824276","provider":"Barnes \u0026 Noble (DEV)","version":"1.0","type":"link"}