The book “How I Earned Money for Teeth in Berlin” can be purchased at Agora bookshop; we recommend it to fans of stories based on truth and humor. The novel, based on autobiographical themes, describes the life of emigrants and the artistic underworld in Berlin in the 1990s.
The book’s protagonist, Jacek K., recounts in an exceptionally light-hearted and humorous way how he worked as a musician on the streets of Berlin. The difficult period of transition from communism to capitalism in Poland forced him—as it did many other of our compatriots—to go west to earn a living.
In the postscript, the novel’s author wrote:
“It was not easy to organize Jacek’s notes from ten years ago and turn them into a literary whole. (…) Jacek usually made his notes at night, in bed, in conditions that were not always conducive to writing. (…) I visited Berlin several times, spoke with people from the places where Jacek stayed and with those few musicians who still played in Berlin. (…) The adventures and events described by Jacek turned out to be largely true.”
It is worth reaching for this testimony to the strange, painful and extraordinary emigration of Poles from free Poland after 1989 in search of bread. This story is fascinating, vivid and deeply bitter. For many, the book will be a return to bygone years; for others, an opportunity to learn about life under different circumstances and dispel the myths about earnings and easy work abroad.
The meeting was organized by the Bolesławiec Cultural Centre-International Ceramics Centre and AGORA Bookshop.
