num_pages: 160
description: The Street of Crocodiles in the Polish city of Drogobych is a street of memories and dreams where recollections of Bruno Schulz's uncommon boyhood and of the eerie side of his merchant family's life are evoked in a startling blend of the real and the fantastic. Most memorable - and most chilling - is the portrait of the author's father, a maddened shopkeeper who imports rare birds' eggs to hatch in his attic, who believes tailors' dummies should be treated like people, and whose obsessive fear of cockroaches causes him to resemble one. Bruno Schulz, a Polish Jew killed by the Nazis in 1942, is considered by many to have been the leading Polish writer between the two world wars.Bruno Schulz's untimely death at the hands of a Nazi stands as one of the great losses to modern literature. During his lifetime, his work found little critical regard, but word of his remarkable talents gradually won him an international readership. This volume brings together his complete fiction, including three short stories and his final surviving work, Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass. Illustrated with Schulz's original drawings, this edition beautifully showcases the distinctive surrealist vision of one of the twentieth century's most gifted and influential writers.
language: English
title: The Street of Crocodiles
titlecomplete: The Street of Crocodiles
genres: Classics, Magical Realism, Fantasy, Poland, Polish Literature, Short Stories, School, 20th Century, Literature, Fiction
ratings_count: 14921
places: Poland
awards: awardedAt: 126259200000
name: Prix du Meilleur Livre Étranger
category: Roman, awardedAt: 1388563200000
name: Tähtifantasia Award
publisher: Penguin Classics