Swimming in the Dark by  Tomasz Jedrowski

Swimming in the Dark

Tomasz Jedrowski

An lyrical coming of age story set within early 1980's Poland. We follow soon-to-graduate Ludwik and their rapidly blossoming love affair with Janusz, in the temporary idyll of a summer camp. Soon, the grip of the repressive State exerts its ever stronger hold over Ludwik's attempts to live a life true to themselves. Both the freedom and the constraint is powerfully drawn - I found this an evocative and illuminating read of individual resistance.

Extract

You were right when you said that people can't always give us what we want from them; that you can't ask them to love you the way you want. No one can be blamed for that. And the odds had been stacked against us from the start: we had no manual, no one to show us the way. Not one example of a happy couple made up of boys. How were we supposed to know what to do? Did we even believe that we deserved to get away with happiness?

Parallels
  • Young Mungo by Douglas Stuart
  • Giovanni's Room by James Baldwin
  • Metronom - the film
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Explicit sexual Content