Cover of The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story

The Empusium: A Health Resort Horror Story

by Olga Tokarczuk, Antonia Lloyd-Jones

3.8
(55 ratings)
320 pages17 editions2022Fitzcarraldo EditionsISBN 9781804271087
challengingdarktenseslowdarkmediumslow

About this book

The Nobel Prize winner’s latest masterwork, set in a sanitarium on the eve of World War I, probes the horrors that lie beneath our most hallowed ideas September 1913. A young Pole suffering from tuberculosis arrives at Wilhelm Opitz’s Guesthouse for Gentlemen in the village of Görbersdorf, a health resort in the Silesian mountains. Every evening the residents gather to imbibe the hallucinogenic local liqueur and debate the great issues of the day: Monarchy or democracy? Do devils exist? Are women born inferior? War or peace? Meanwhile, disturbing things are happening in the guesthouse and the surrounding hills. Someone—or something—seems to be watching, attempting to infiltrate this cloistered world. Little does the newcomer realize, as he tries to unravel both the truths within himself and the mystery of the sinister forces beyond, that they have already chosen their next target. A century after the publication of The Magic Mountain, Olga Tokarczuk revisits Thomas Mann territory and lays claim to it, with signature boldness, inventiveness, humor, and bravura.

Publication Details

Publisher
Fitzcarraldo Editions
Published
2022
Pages
320
ISBN
9781804271087
Language
en
Editions
17

About Olga Tokarczuk

Olga Nawoja Tokarczuk (ur. 29 stycznia 1962 w Sulechowie) – polska pisarka, eseistka, poetka i autorka scenariuszy, psycholożka, laureatka Nagrody Nobla w dziedzinie literatury za rok 2018, laureatka The Man Booker International Prize 2018 za powieść Bieguni oraz dwukrotna laureatka Nagrody Literackiej „Nike” za powieści: *Bieguni* (2008) i *Księgi Jakubowe* (2015). ---------- Olga Nawoja Tokarczuk ([tɔˈkart͡ʂuk]; born 29 January 1962) is a Polish writer, activist, and public intellectual. She is one of the most critically acclaimed and successful authors of her generation in Poland. In 2019, she was awarded the 2018 Nobel Prize in Literature as the first Polish female prose writer for "a narrative imagination that with encyclopedic passion represents the crossing of boundaries as a form of life." For her novel *Flights,* Tokarczuk has been awarded the 2018 Man Booker International Prize (translated by Jennifer Croft). Her works include Primeval and *Other Times, Drive Your Plow Over the Bones of the Dead,* and *The Books of Jacob.* [source](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olga_Tokarczuk)

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