Il centro, la via, la strada: tre cronotopi nella narrativa polacca post 1989

This essay concerns the fiction works of some Polish writers who made their literary debuts after 1989 (A. Stasiuk, P. Siemion, W. Kowalewski, Z. Kruszyński, K. Varga). Analysis of the urban space in their novels and tales based on three chronotopes (Bachtin) – center, street, road – serves to define certain characteristics of the hero and of the literary narrative mode. In the Polish literary city of the post-socialist era, there is now no trace of the flâneur: replaced with the figure of a wanderer or fugitive, the hero of Polish literary fiction is lost in urban centers that take on the unique characteristics of the labyrinth. In this can be sought the reason behind the revived popularity of the theme of travel in the new Polish prose.