SOURCE: A review of The Polish Complex, in World Literature Today, Vol. 56, No. 4, Autumn, 1982, p. 720.

In the following review, the critic delineates the historical significance of the setting, plot, and characters of The Polish Complex.

A prolific and talented novelist (who has also worked effectively in film), Konwicki has recently felt it necessary to express through fiction his most passionately held sociopolitical views. The Polish Complex, first published in London by "Index on Censorship" (1977) after limited samizdat circulation at home, points an accusing finger at Russia, the age-old enemy which has dominated, exploited and repressed Poland for almost two centuries. The writer comes from Vilno (the former capital of Polish Lithuania); as a very young man he joined the partisans and fought against the occupying Germans and later the Russians (for which he was sentenced to jail). Now, apparently, he has been again arrested by the new military...