Walking in the city

ABSTRACT

My short story contributes to discussions about the relationship between memory and place. It is set in Muranów, erected on the ashes of the former ghetto, a space of absence and repressed guilt. Even though the quarter was razed to the ground, it is still part of the city's landscape and remains a haunting presence. It exists in fragments: memories, images, and ghost stories. The short story focuses on the connection between memory, trauma, and storytelling. The space of Muranów, a palimpsest of the past, becomes a trigger for re-examination of what has been forgotten and silenced. Moreover, it explores how a foreign language can serve as a tool through which painful and repressed stories can be (re)told.

KEYWORDS:

• postmemory
• urban space
• Polish-Jewish relations
• trauma
• ghost stories
• self-translation

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Izabela Ilowska

Izabela Ilowska holds a PhD in English Literature and Creative Writing from the University of Glasgow. Currently, she works as an Assistant in the Department of the History of American Literature and Culture at Jagiellonian University in Kraków, Poland. Her short stories have appeared in literary magazines in both the UK and Poland.