(A) Warsaw. In the 13th issue, Wiadomości Literackie publishes the short story Brilliant Era by Bruno Schulz.
(B) Warsaw. The Zet magazine publishes a review entitled “Among prose writers” by Henryk Domiński, devoted to, among other subjects, Brunon Schulz’s The Cinnamon Shops.
(A) The story comes out at a time when there is a rapidly growing tide of reviews and discussions of the recently released The Cinnamon Shops*. In the first three months of 1934, there are a dozen of them. Schulz is becoming an increasingly recognisable figure in the literary world. The short story that has just been published sets a perspective for the future – it seems to anticipate – as the editors of Wiadomości Literackie* inform the public in a footnote – “the fact that the Brilliant Era* is an “excerpt from The Messiah novel*”. Perhaps this was Schulz’s original plan, but ultimately, contrary to the announcement, the writer would include Brilliant Era in the Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass*, which would be published in 1937. In a book edition, the text differs from the magazine version in several places. Both publications do not contain illustrations. (sr) (transl. mw)
(B) Domiński’s review is devoted to a few books that have been published recently but in the publicist’s opinion, Schulz’s literary debut requires a separate study. The Cinnamon Shops belongs to the fantasy genre, not in terms of plot arrangements, though, but in the description of a deformed reality. Although in terms of content it concerns daily and mundane matters, in the artistic presentation, these matters grow to the size of a “dangerous Apocalypse” and acquire a large “metaphysical intensity”. The atmosphere is enhanced by stylistic measures, especially metaphors, which have a purely poetic splendour. After all, The Cinnamon Shops is, according to Domiński, an excellent book, although with some shortcomings and sometimes exaggerations. (transl. mw)
