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Migrant Lives and the Dynamics of (Non)belonging in the Polish-British Works of A.M. Bakalar, Wioletta Greg, and Agnieszka Dale

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Polish Culture in Britain

Abstract

Migration exposes such givens as home and belonging to be more than national or ethnic categories; instead, they emerge as complex affective affiliations which fluctuate in the emotionally volatile situation of relocation. Such “ambivalent dynamics of (non)belonging” feature prominently in the works of three Polish-British authors discussed in this chapter: A.M. Bakalar, Wioletta Greg (Grzegorzewska), and Agnieszka Dale. The migration literature produced by these authors exploits the productive potential of the emotional ambivalence inscribed in the migrant condition. Fuelled by the authors’ first-hand experience of migration, their works offer a nuanced reflection on how Polishness, particularly in its female, post-2004 incarnation, is inhabited, represented, and negotiated in the UK, while at the same time responding to the broader anxieties which contemporary migration engenders.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Nichola Wood and Louise Waite, “Editorial: Scales of Belonging,” Emotion, Space and Society 4 (2011): 201. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2011.06.005.

  2. 2.

    Paolo Boccagni and Loretta Baldassar, “Emotions on the Move: Mapping the Emergent Field of Emotion and Migration,” Emotion Space and Society 16 (2015): 74. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2015.06.009.

  3. 3.

    Zygmunt Bauman, “Migration and Identities in the Globalized World,” Philosophy and Social Criticism 37:4 (2011): 434. https://doi.org/10.1177/0191453710396809.

  4. 4.

    Wioletta Greg is the British pen name of Wioletta Grzegorzewska. All her translated works published in the UK feature the surname “Greg.”

  5. 5.

    Magda Raczyńska, “A.M. Bakalar - Profesjonalna kłamczucha,” Wysokie Obcasy, July 3, 2012. https://www.wysokieobcasy.pl/wysokie-obcasy/7,53662,12041345,a-m-bakalar-profesjonalna-klamczucha.html?disableRedirects=true.

  6. 6.

    Anna Nasiłowska, “Introduction: Emigration and Migration,” Migrant Literature. Special issue of Teksty Drugie 1 (2018): 6.

  7. 7.

    Elżbieta M. Goździak, “Polish Migration after the Fall of the Iron Curtain,” International Migration 52:1 (2014): 1. https://doi.org/10.1111/imig.12146.

  8. 8.

    Urszula Chowaniec, Melancholic Migrating Bodies in Contemporary Polish Women’s Writing (Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2015), 9.

  9. 9.

    Søren Frank, Migration and Literature: Günter Grass, Milan Kundera, Salman Rushdie, and Jan Kjærstad (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 3.

  10. 10.

    Rebecca L. Walkowitz, “The Location of Literature. The Transnational Book and the Migrant Writer,” Contemporary Literature 47, no. 4 (2006): 530; Leslie A. Adelson, The Turkish Turn in Contemporary German Literature: Toward a New Critical Grammar of Migration (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005), 5.

  11. 11.

    Karolin Zagrodna, “Madame skandalistka?” Cooltura. Polish Weekly Magazine, June 15, 2012. https://www.cooltura24.co.uk/wiadomosci/23974,madame-skandalistka.

  12. 12.

    Raczyńska, “A.M. Bakalar,” n.p.

  13. 13.

    For more information on the meaning of Matka Polka in the novel, see: Martyna Bryla, “Weeding out the Roots? Migrant Identity in A. M. Bakalar’s Polish-British Fiction,” Complutense Journal of English Studies 28 (2020): 1-10. https://doi.org/10.5209/cjes.61109.

  14. 14.

    Bryla, “Weeding out the Roots?”: 7.

  15. 15.

    A.M. Bakalar, Madame Mephisto (London: Stork Press, 2012), 4.

  16. 16.

    Bakalar, Madame Mephisto, 10.

  17. 17.

    Bakalar, Madame Mephisto, 165–166.

  18. 18.

    The post-2004 wave of Polish migrants has necessarily redefined the UK Polonia, the Polish community which took shape in the post-World War II period: in order to recreate a sense of home in exile, Poles established local Polish clubs. According to Polish-British author Joanna Czechowska, whose father came to the UK during the war, such clubs “would be like a little home from home, a little Poland where they lived,” offering or overseeing a variety of activities for adults and children, including Polish religious services; Joanna Kosmalska, “Goodbye Polsko, Hello Anglio. Joanna Czechowska Speaks with Joanna Kosmalska,” Text Matters: A Journal of Literature, Theory and Culture 4 (2014): 249.

  19. 19.

    Gema Ortega, “Where Is Home? Diaspora and Hybridity in Contemporary Dialogue,” Moderna Språk 114 (2020): 47.

  20. 20.

    Ortega, “Where is Home?” 45.

  21. 21.

    Including Bakalar’s own successful integration and her involvement in promoting Polish and East-Central European literature and culture in the UK through her editorial work and support for fellow writers like Greg and Dale.

  22. 22.

    A.M. Bakalar, “Polish People are Britain’s Invisible Minority,” The Guardian, December 18, 2012. http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/dec/18/polish-people-britain-invisible-minority.

  23. 23.

    Joanna Kosmalska, “Czuję się pisarką polską z krwi i kości. Rozmowa z Wiolettą Grzegorzewską,” Arterie 2 (2014): 155.

  24. 24.

    Kosmalska, “Czuję się.”

  25. 25.

    Iwona Gralewicz-Wolny, “‘Tysiąc wierszy.’ O poezji Wioletty Grzegorzewskiej tropem Guguł (bądź odwrotnie).” Poznańskie Studia Polonistyczne. Seria Literacka 33 (2018): 124 (my translation). https://doi.org/10.14746/pspsl.2018.33.6. Swallowing Mercury was originally published in Polish as Guguły (2014). The translated version was longlisted for the Man Booker International Prize 2017.

  26. 26.

    Wioletta Greg, Finite Formulae and Theories of Chance, tr. by Marek Kazmierski (Todmorden: Arc Publications, 2014), 67.

  27. 27.

    Greg, Finite Formulae, 106.

  28. 28.

    Greg, Finite Formulae, 79.

  29. 29.

    Greg, Finite Formulae, 79.

  30. 30.

    Greg, Finite Formulae, 95.

  31. 31.

    Greg, Finite Formulae, 90.

  32. 32.

    Greg, Finite Formulae, 87 (my translation). The original phrase, “Jestem podwójna,” has been rendered by Kazmierski as “Feeling halved.” However, I find the translation “I am dual” to be closer to the original.

  33. 33.

    Anna Kałuża, “Polska poezja na Wyspach: podczas wieczorów panuje tu nostalgia,” Teksty Drugie 3 (2016), 199 (my translation). https://doi.org/10.18318/td.2016.3.11.

  34. 34.

    Greg, Finite Formulae, 90.

  35. 35.

    The book was originally published as Stancje (2017).

  36. 36.

    Agnieszka Dale and A.M. Bakalar “Where’s Your Accent From? Britain’s White Others,” (2018). https://unbound.com/boundless/2018/08/31/wheres-your-accent-from-britains-white-others/.

  37. 37.

    Dale and Bakalar, “Where’s Your Accent From?”

  38. 38.

    Dale and Bakalar, “Where’s Your Accent From?”

  39. 39.

    John Munch, “#RivetingReviews: John Munch reviews Fox Season by Agnieszka Dale,” European Literature Network, March 24, 2017. https://www.eurolitnetwork.com/rivetingreviews-john-munch-reviews-fox-season-by-agnieszka-dale/.

  40. 40.

    Agnieszka Dale, Fox Season and Other Stories (London: Jantar Publishing, 2017), 63.

  41. 41.

    Dale, Fox Season, 39.

  42. 42.

    Dale, Fox Season, 44.

  43. 43.

    Vedrana Veličković, “‘Eastern Europeans’ and BrexLit,” Journal of Postcolonial Writing 56:5 (2020), 657. https://doi.org/10.1080/17449855.2020.1816692.

  44. 44.

    Veličković, “Eastern Europeans,” 658.

  45. 45.

    Dale, Fox Season, 67.

  46. 46.

    Robert Hampson, “Foreword,” in Conradology: A Celebration of the Work of Joseph Conrad, ed. Becky Harrison and Magda Raczyńska (Manchester: Comma Press, Kindle, 2017), 9.

  47. 47.

    Dale, Fox Season, 74.

  48. 48.

    Dale, Fox Season, 75.

  49. 49.

    Nichola Wood and Louise Waite, “Editorial: Scales of Belonging,” Emotion, Space and Society 4 (2011): 201-202. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2011.06.005.

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    Google Scholar 

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English, French and German, University of Málaga, Málaga, Spain

    Martyna Bryla

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Correspondence to Martyna Bryla .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Department of English Literature, University of Portsmouth, Portsmouth, UK

    Maggie Ann Bowers

  2. School of Humanities, Coventry University, Coventry, UK

    Ben Dew

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Bryla, M. (2023). Migrant Lives and the Dynamics of (Non)belonging in the Polish-British Works of A.M. Bakalar, Wioletta Greg, and Agnieszka Dale. In: Bowers, M.A., Dew, B. (eds) Polish Culture in Britain. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-031-32188-7_8

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